From Friendship to Forever
by Forever without him
Summary: A collection of one-shots spanning through the years following Emily Fields and Alison DiLaurentis. Fetus Emison and Domestic Family Emison. And of course, appearances by the other Liars, because they're fam.
1. Jealousy

**A/N:** _S'up PLL fam? I somehow got roped into doing PLL prompts on tumblr, Emison more specifically. I don't actively seek them out, but I do occasionally get an ask that has a prompt that I feel like doing. I'm trying to get my ass organized and to get them all in one place. These little drabbles will be highly different than my stories "Matters of the Heart" and "Still Waters Run Deep" (which I'm still trying to perfect the final chapter for my lovely loyal readers, I promise). For one thing they aren't the length of a Shakespearean novel. And for another thing they aren't all connected._

 _As with everything I write, I have a hard time with my inner critic when I do prompts because I'm more acclimated to plotting out full stories with arcs and all that jazz, so when I do prompts I always look at it with that critical eye thinking that it looks incohesive and disjointed. Hopefully that's not the case. Hopefully my angsty inner self is just a judgemental ho. Regardless, the prompts are all going to make their big movie debut here on fanfic. Enjoy.  
_

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 **Prompt : Always wanted a fetus emison flashback scene where a guy asked Emily out and Alison came and took Emily's hand and they walked away.**

* * *

 _ **Jealousy**_

Alison watched from across the courtyard. She couldn't hear what was being said, but she didn't like the fact that Ben Coogan was talking to Emily Fields.

 _Her_ Emily. _Her_ Mermaid.

It wasn't uncommon for them to chat after swim practice, but something about Ben seemed different today. He had a certain cockiness in his strut that Alison didn't like.

They walked a little closer and Alison tried to pretend to be invested in writing in her diary. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emily wrap her arms around herself. It was a telltale sign that she was uncomfortable. She'd had that nervous habit since she was a kid. It made Alison want to reach out and hug her.

Emily had always been the most shy of Alison's friends. And Alison was the only one who knew why. It had nothing to do with being raised in a strict military household. It was because she was hiding. Hiding from herself, from who she really was. Emily wasn't like the others. She was special. In more ways than one.

Alison had a fondness for her she didn't quite understand. She was, after all, Alison DiLaurentis...and she was fabulous. She didn't need validation from others. But for some reason she yearned for Emily's approval.

She didn't like it when other people got too close to her. She felt overprotective of her. Subconsciously, she knew the reason. But she would never admit it. She couldn't. But she knew it.

Ben was standing way too close to her kind brunette. And Alison had to fight her urge to kick a chair out in his path and watch him face-plant over it.

"So, Em, I was wondering something," Ben said as they slowed down, nearing where Alison was seated.

 _Don't_. Alison growled in thought. _Don't you dare. She's too good for you._

He tried to be coy and cute, pretending to be nervous as he ran his fingers through his damp hair. Alison wasn't naive enough to fall for that act. But Emily was trusting. Emily saw the good in everyone. She couldn't see what Ben was really doing, what he was really after. That boy wanted one thing, and one thing only. And Alison could see it written all over his face.

"We've been swimming together for years now…"

 _She's much better than you._

In every way.

"…and I was thinking…maybe one night we should get together and you know…"

 _If you even THINK about touching her I will destroy you._

"…hang out."

Alison knew EXACTLY what "hang out" meant to teenage boys like Ben. Get a girl drunk and then get handsy with her. She was not about to let that happen to her sweet Emily.

"Oh." Emily seemed surprised.

Alison saw her cheeks redden. She was so damn adorable when she was flustered. She was like a cute little puppy. And Alison was not going to let some sicko abuse her.

 _Tell him to get lost, Emily. Tell him that you're a queen and he's nothing more than a warty little frog._

"That's…um…I uh…" Emily was obviously flattered, but she didn't know how to turn him down.

Of course she didn't. She was Emily Fields. She was too nice. Alison couldn't watch her stutter any longer. She pushed herself up and looked over at them for the first time, her eyes immediately locking on Ben's.

 _Back off, creep._ She thought to herself.

"Em, hey." Alison closed the distance between them.

"Alison?" Emily still seemed flustered.

"Sweetie, where have you been? I've been waiting for you." She strolled right next to Emily and casually grabbed her hand, earning a scowl from Ben. "Didn't you get my text?"

"Um…no. I just got out of practice."

Alison could tell. Her hair still smelled like chlorine. And she was still glistening from the water.

"What are you doing here?" Emily looked down at their joined hands, confused by the motion. Confused by Alison's presence. Just…confused.

"I thought we could go check out the new boutique sale. What do you say? Are you up for it?"

"We were kind of in the middle of something here." Ben sneered.

"Don't be selfish, _Ben_." She made sure the inflection in his name came across in a very 'I will kick you in the crotch' kind of way. "You've had Emily to yourself all afternoon. I just want to spend a little quality time with my best friend here."

"Best…" Emily shook her head, completely tongue-tied. She had no idea what was going on.

"I had this whole afternoon planned. It was all in my text." She lied, getting ready to fake a pout.

Emily nodded and smiled sweetly at her. That smile. Alison adored that smile. It could cure anything in her life that was wrong.

"Of course." Emily nodded. Alison knew she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out with her. "Sorry, Ben. Maybe we can talk another time."

 _Or never._ Alison thought to herself.

"I'll catch you at swim practice?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, sure." Ben nodded, walking away, but not before stealing one last angry glare at the blonde who had caused a foul in his play.

"I hope he's not too mad." Emily bit her lip.

"Oh, you care too much." Alison scoffed. It was actually one of the things she loved about her.

"So…" Emily looked at Alison, shifting shyly on her feet. "…uh…you're holding my hand."

"Yeah, so?" She wasn't ready to let her go.

"No, it's fine." Emily looked at her through a furrowed brow. "It's just…" She stared at her, Alison staring back, trying very hard not to get lost in her soft sienna eyes. "Alison, are you okay?"

"Of course." Alison nodded. "You just looked like you could use a lifeline."

Emily nodded in agreement.

"He caught me off-guard. I like Ben," she said. "But I don't _like_ him like him."

 _He's not your type, sweetie. Why can't you just admit it?_

"There are plenty of fish in the sea. And you're not going to find anything worthy in Rosewood's pool." Alison laughed. "So, are you up for shopping and dinner?"

"Oh, you were being serious about that? It wasn't just an excuse for me to get away from Ben?"

"Of course I was being serious." Alison nodded, almost a little insulted that Emily didn't think she wanted to spend time with her.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I was thinking Rive Gauche after our shopping spree. And then maybe we can take a walk or something afterwards. It's supposed to be a really nice night."

Alison had an idea in mind of where she wanted to take Emily after dinner. She'd often talked to her about 'The Kissing Rock', a spot out in the woods near a lake where teenagers went to make out. Emily had scoffed when Alison told the story about how when couples went out to the rock they felt the ghosts of the previous people who had visited encouraging them to kiss. But she'd looked a little intrigued by the idea. Alison hadn't been able to get her mind off of that rock since that day.

"Yeah, that would be cool." Emily looked excited.

"Great." Alison chirped bubbly. "Let's make a night out of it then." She started walking forward.

"Alison," Emily said, calling for her attention. "You're _still_ holding my hand." She looked down at their interlaced fingers.

Alison's face softened and she smiled at Emily. All Emily could do was smile back.

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 **A/N:** _I've got a few more prompts to move over here from tumblr, mostly domestic family Emison (which is a popular request). I do have a couple of asks on tumblr that I'm mulling over right now as well. I'll update as I go along.  
_


	2. Family

**A/N:** _Getting your reviews always means the world to me. Sometimes when I'm at my lowest and I log on and see my regulars (and my shy guest reviewers, s'up, I see you!) it makes a big difference in my life. Saw a lot of love for my fetus Emison, which is somewhat of an encouragement because I *may* already have a fetus Emison fic in the works that's kinda saucy and fun like that first prompt (possessive Alison and all), but with a few twists (it's AU). And I've been looking at it with such a critical eye because it's so different than what I'm used to doing. I've been going back and forth about sharing, but you all are always so encouraging so that makes me feel better. It will probably see the light of day eventually. When I get the eff over myself._

 _As for your request Boris, I don't actively seek prompts out, but I never say no to ideas.  
_

* * *

 **Prompt: Can you write a tiny little prompt of the twins meeting the baby boy? Like Emily taking the twins to the hospital to meet the baby? And they go in and Alison is in the bed with the baby and they're excited but nervous at the same time?**

* * *

 _ **Family**_

The silence in the hospital room was a stark contrast to what it had been just hours ago. Alison's screams and colorful language could be heard all the way down the hall. At one point she'd looked up at Emily, her face a dark crimson color and drenched in sweat. She'd cried and told her she couldn't do it. The twins hadn't been half as hard and this birth was only _one_ baby. But their son was breech and it was so much more painful than her first delivery.

Emily had leaned in to her face as close as she could and placed a firm kiss against her head and told her she could do it. The doctors were optimistic and encouraging, noting that medical knowledge had really come a long way when it came to breech births. Many women delivered breech babies that weren't in distress without a C-section thanks to advanced medical research. They were slowly, but surely helping the baby boy turn as he came out.

Alison had screamed and cried and cussed and squeezed Emily's hand so hard that her nails drew blood. But Emily was more focused on Alison. She wiped her sweat covered hair out of her face and told her she was doing great. She watched in awe as the doctors worked down between Alison's legs to ensure that their son came out okay.

It had been the most agonizing experience of Alison's life, but when she heard the doctor proclaim he was out followed by the broken cries of her baby she'd broken down and cried in both joy and exhaustion. And when she'd felt his little body flush against her chest she thought her heart was going to burn her from the inside with the sheer amount of love she felt.

Emily and Alison had taken turns passing him back and forth and ogling their tiny little boy. He was only six pounds four ounces, but because he'd come out ass backwards he felt like he'd been sixteen pounds.

When Emily went out to the waiting room to get their twelve-year-old daughters Alison was left alone with her son for the first time. She marveled at his perfection. His tiny little button nose. His little wiggling fingers. His eyes. His beautiful big eyes. Staring into his eyes was like looking into a beautiful new universe. All of the pain had been worth it. Her son was worth it.

She heard rustling and she looked up and saw two shadows being cast through the doorway. She looked up and saw her twins, Grace and Lily standing in the hallway, awkwardly dancing between walking into the room and staying out in the hall. Emily was right behind them.

They peered at their mom and their new baby brother nervously, neither one stepping forward. Lily rocked on her feet. Grace looked into the hospital room like if she walked in it was going to transport her to an entirely new world.

"Go ahead, girls." Emily encouraged them.

Lily was the first one to step forward. Alison smiled at her firstborn daughter. Lily had always been an eager little girl. She had the drive to be first at everything she did.

Grace followed, quickly catching up to her sister and pushing to bypass her. Their second born was fearless and feisty. She ended up by Alison's side first. Lily walked up next to her sister. Emily walked over to the opposite side of the bed and took Alison's free hand in hers.

The girls looked at the baby. Their little brother's eyes were open wide, rolling around as he glanced at the new world he'd been catapulted into. His eyes stopped when he saw two identical faces looking down at him. He pushed his lips out and his forehead scrunched like he was deep in thought.

"Hey, I think he sees us." Grace gasped in delight.

"He's so cute." Lily cooed.

His eyes popped open in surprise at the sound of their voices. The new world was startling and loud to him.

"Aww, it's okay." Lily tried to comfort him.

A sound between a coo and a cry came out, but he didn't look upset. He pushed his lips together and it looked suspiciously like a smile.

"They say that means he has gas." Grace grinned.

"Well, he _is_ a boy." Lily didn't disagree. She looked at Alison. "Is it okay to touch him?"

He looked so small and vulnerable, like he might break if they weren't careful.

"It'll be even better if you hold him." Emily encouraged them.

Alison pushed up against the bed and gently turned their son in her arms and carefully handed him to Emily. The girls flocked over to their mother and little brother.

"I wanna hold him." Lily timidly put her finger against his cheek.

"Come here." Emily instructed her. She took Lily's arm in her hand and stretched it out, transporting him into Lily's arms and up against her body. "All you have to do is support his head."

Lily looked down, unable to take her eyes off of the newborn in her hands. She felt a knot in her throat and tears burning her eyes.

"He's so little." She instinctively bounced him gently when he started squirming. She rubbed her thumb against his wrist and he turned his arm and latched his fingers on to her thumb. "Hi." She said, her voice an octave higher than it normally was. "You're so cute." She looked up at her moms. "Will he stay this cute?"

"You didn't." Grace smarted back.

"We have the same face, genius." Lily rolled her eyes.

There was a cry of protest from the baby boy in Lily's arms.

"Look what you did." Lily scolded her sister. She moved him from side to side gently to calm him down. "He doesn't like it when we fight."

"Well he's screwed then." Grace laughed, leaning over her little brother. She looked down at him and smiled and then looked at Lily. "My turn." She said eagerly.

"Let your mom help you." Alison glanced at Emily nervously.

"They're okay, Ali." Emily assured her. "Lily." She addressed her oldest daughter. "You got this?"

"Yeah." Lily nodded, smiling down at the baby in her arms. "We've got this, don't we, little guy?" She cooed.

"Stop stalling." Grace was getting antsy.

Lily looked at her moms and sighed.

"Are we sure we should let her do this? She dropped her robot baby from our Home Ec project into the washing machine."

"Psh, please. That was two months ago." Grace rolled her eyes. "I've matured since then."

"You laughed at the word 'impenetrable' fifteen minutes ago."

Grace snorted when she heard the word again.

"Lily, let your sister have a turn." Emily pushed gently.

Lily didn't want to give her brother up. She wanted to hold him and snuggle him forever. She reluctantly and carefully placed the infant into Grace's waiting arms.

He squirmed at first, but Grace immediately started talking to him.

"Hey, it's your favorite big sister." Grace spoke in a soothing voice. "I can't wait to take you home and teach you the _best_ ways to mess with Lily."

He stared up at Grace inquisitively for a few seconds and then he yawned.

"Ha, you bore him." Lily chuckled.

"Don't pay any attention to her. I'll teach you how to jump out of closets and scare her as soon as we get home. We're going to have a lot of fun together, baby brother." She promised.

Grace talked all about her favorite ways to annoy Lily for several minutes and then Lily butted in and insisted that she get to hold him again. They were so enamored by their little brother that they didn't even notice that Emily had sat down on the bed next to Alison. She looked at her wife, who was still practically glistening in the light from the birth. The blonde looked at her with love and adoration. No words were exchanged as they reached for each other's hands. Emily leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her lips and Alison smiled at her. They both looked at their children at the exact same moment.

The twins could argue over who was the better sister until the end of time, but Alison and Emily both knew that the love they had for their little brother was all their baby boy really needed. Their family was perfect.


	3. Exposed

**Prompt: I have an emison prompt: takes place in 7x18 at the kissing rock. They have an after sex talk before they have to go to Spencer's barn when the time runs out.  
**

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 **A/N:** _So, full disclosure I have like zero memory of season 7 in general, so I have no clue if the plot/characters as they were will be even close to canon. I kind of went from my memory as best as possible. Also I don't really do non-existent canon scenes very well (brain is like "can't measure up to the real thing.")._

 _Also, I just want to let everyone know that I see their prompt ideas. There's a lot of creativity out there. But I feel limited on what I can tackle. I'm not a writer who plans when the mood will strike. Sometimes I'll get a prompt, think "Nope, no way I could do it justice" and then 3 weeks later I punch the inner critic in the head and write it. Also, FYI, there is a fetus Emison fic (yes, with over-protective Alison) in the works. I'm wrestling with my inner-me about it.  
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* * *

 _ **Exposed**_

Alison had been able to sense Emily's tension all day. And it's not like they didn't have a rough decision looming over their heads. But she hated to see the brunette so rocked, so Alison had been thinking of ways to help her de-stress

She'd been thinking a lot about the choice they had to make. It didn't help that they, along with Spencer and Hanna, had been feeling really guilty for going off on Aria for helping _AD_. Aria had gone AWOL and _AD_ was up their asses about turning themselves into the police for what they'd done to Archer Dunhill, though the son of a bitch deserved worse.

They had so much that they wanted to escape from, physically and mentally. Emily had even been talking about taking off, which was a shock to Alison. The police showing up at their house had really gotten to Emily, and the sting of Aria's betrayal was still fresh, so she had a lot she was trying to wrap her head around.

Emily had been so sure that Aria would never hurt them. When she found out about Aria's involvement in the game she'd lost it. Alison had never seen Emily so shaken. So to take her mind off of everything Alison set up a home away from home, a little romantic getaway where they could forget about life for a while.

Emily had been antsy on the walk out, unable to let go of the control, still thinking about everything they were facing. It was only when she'd seen the setup of the candle-lit picnic under the stars that she'd let her guard down. She had been amazed and heartened by the gesture. She'd watched as Alison took her place on the makeshift cot and beckoned her to join.

 _"If this is our last chance at freedom…let's make the most of it,"_ Alison had said.

So that's what they did. They let the rest of the world go. They came together to forget their fear and their pain. They ate and shared a few glasses of sparkling cider. Emily reached for a grape every so often to feed to Alison like they would one day hopefully get to do with wedding cake. And as their time wound down from fourteen hours, to thirteen, to twelve…

They held one another, they loved one another. They forgot about the ticking clock. The evening stars above them and the blankets and pillows below them led to them getting lost in one another. It gave them something for them, and only them, for a few fleeting hours before their lives took that drastic turn over the cliff they were both fearing.

The night wore on, but they weren't thinking about the time. They weren't thinking about anything other than one another. The only sound in the dim candlelight was the heavy sound of their breathing. And when they'd exhausted themselves they laid together, looking at the stars. Emily thought about the unending freedom the solar system offered. It was somewhat of a comfort to her.

Alison's cheek was against Emily's sweaty chest, her hand resting on the brunette's bare abdomen. She watched as her hand rose and fell with every breath that Emily took.

It was a strange thing to be so exposed out in the open, but not care. In a sense, it's how they'd been living their lives since high school because of the exposure they often got, for the wrong reasons. It used to bother all the girls, especially Emily, who liked her privacy.

But lying out under the stars with her girl sans clothes was just what she needed. Because in that moment they were the only two people who existed in the world. It was true freedom.

Alison felt Emily playing with her hair and she smiled. But something about her touch was off. Emily was lost in thought. She was quiet, which was unlike her. Usually when they were basking in the afterglow of their wild throes of passion Emily was a cuddler and a sweet-talker, so her silence was deafening. She was clinging to Alison like it was going to be the last time she'd ever get to hold her.

Alison knew their moment of escapism was over. She knew the clock was ticking again. She could feel it like the tapping of an incessant secondhand mocking them. _Ten_ hours. _Nine_.

Emily was still silent. The last few days she had been talking about running away from Rosewood, which admittedly was usually Alison's go-to move. But Emily wasn't one to run. She always stayed and fought. But this was different. Because this time it wasn't just her life at stake. Or the rest of the girls. Or Alison's for that matter. There was a life of an innocent child in the mix.

 _Eight_. _Seven_.

The candles were slowly waning, their light being swallowed by the disappearing wicks. As the seconds, minutes…as the _hours_ crept increasingly closer to their own personal D-Day, Alison pushed through the silence. She sat up, placing her palm against her head and leaned forward on her elbow so she could look into Emily's eyes.

"What's on your mind, Em?" Alison reached up and brushed her hair aside.

It was a question that had an obvious answer, but in order to get Emily to actually _talk_ to her she had to ask it. Because Emily internalized. She held everything inside. Sometimes her girl needed a nudge to open up, so she pushed. Emily ran her fingers over Alison's knuckles where Alison's palm was still resting on her stomach and then she sighed and looked up at her.

"Was I wrong?"

"Were you…" Alison muttered in confusion. _About what?_

"To go off on Aria like that?"

Of course she was swimming in guilt. She wouldn't be Emily if she wasn't.

"Em…"

"I mean, _AD_ has made us all do horrible things. Who is to say that it couldn't have just as easily been one of us? I know if the tables had been turned…if _AD_ had threatened you I probably would have done the same thing."

"You wouldn't have hurt anyone…"

"Ali, for you I would." She replied, her tone so unwavering and serious that it jolted Alison a little. Because when her tone became threatening it was downright menacing. "I would do _anything_ for you."

And the blonde knew that, but hearing Emily actually say it was something else. Alison wasn't sure what to say, how to react. So she just nodded quietly.

"Listen, if we can't get away from this, if we get dragged down for this…I want you to tell the cops you're innocent." Emily sucked on her bottom lip nervously. It was still swollen from their encounter.

"Emily…" Alison said softly, an empathetic tone wavering in her voice. It was a tone she often used to try and bring her girl down from emotional heights.

"Don't argue with me about this." Emily replied gruffly, which alarmed Alison. When she was serious, she was _serious_. "I promised you that I wouldn't let anything happen to you…" She reached up, laying her palm flat against Alison's protruding belly, "…or this child. And when the cops showed up at our house this morning with that search warrant I thought…" She clenched her jaw, tears gleaming in her eyes, "…I thought I was going to lose you both. I thought _this is it, this is how AD wins_. And I realized, whoever this is…they're not going to stop. So if they want to take someone down, it might as well be the people who are _truly_ responsible. If the only way to get _AD_ off of our case is for someone to go down I'll take that bullet."

"No you won't." Alison scoffed argumentatively. She felt murderous at the thought of Emily taking the heat. "You were the one who said we needed to stick together in the first place."

"That was before I realized what it meant I was going to lose." Emily grimaced. "Look, I talked to Hanna and Spencer…" And she would have talked to Aria, too, if she wasn't still so damn pissed at her. "And we're all in agreement here. For your sake and the sake of the baby, you need to claim you weren't there." She moved her hand away from Alison's stomach and to her side, her fingers landing against her ribs.

"What?" Alison was taken aback.

She'd talked to the girls about this? She was _serious_ about this? Alison glared at her. She was going to kill her for even considering it.

"You weren't in the car. You didn't help us get rid of the body. You were back at the institution before anyone even knew you were missing. And even if they do find out you ran away, you were in shock from what he'd done to you. And given what he did they'll give you a slap on the wrist. At least you can avoid going back to jail for something you had no hand in."

"Emily, I don't think I can do that." Alison was startled by the suggestion, though she shouldn't have been, given the fact that Emily would do anything to protect her family.

"If we both go down think about what will happen. You've told me more than once that you're afraid that if the system gets involved…takes our child away, it'll just repeat the cycle that happened with Charlotte."

Or worse, _AD_ would get involved and try and snatch the baby the first chance they got. That actually terrified Emily worse than the state getting involved. Because this _AD_ was a legit psychopath.

"You're right, Alison. This baby deserves to be with its mother."

" _Both_ of its mothers. I can't do it without you. I only said 'yes' because you promised you'd be there with me."

Not that she didn't want the baby. She still felt sick every time she thought about how she'd ended up pregnant in the first place. They'd both felt violated and angry and confused. And they still did. But it was the hand they were dealt. And knowing that it was Emily's child…it somehow lessened the blow.

But Alison was terrified of being a mother. She hadn't had the best relationship with her mother. She wasn't sure _what_ a good mother should be. She sure as hell didn't have a maternal bone in her body. She'd barely been able to remember to take her prenatal vitamins without Emily incessantly nagging her about it. She only knew she'd be able to do it if she had Emily with her, guiding her. They were supposed to figure it out together.

"I _will_ be with you. We'll…we'll figure something out." Emily was grasping at straws, trying desperately to keep Alison from being dragged down with them.

"I don't want to be sitting across a glass visitation room bouncing a baby on my lap. I want _you_ with me, Emily. We're supposed to be a family."

"I know. And we will be." She paused and then corrected herself. "We _are_." She stroked Alison's face, which elicited a smile from the blonde. "It will only be temporary. Until we can sort everything out."

"Which could take, what? Ten years to life?" Alison scowled at her. How could Emily think she'd be okay without her?

"Please just consider it. I can't stand the thought of you sitting in a jail cell again." She stopped short of saying _'because of me'_. "If doing this means you're safe…you and the baby…"

"I'm pregnant. I'm not an invalid." Alison bit back angrily.

It irked her when people treated her like she was some fragile piece of glass. She often wondered why people thought pregnant women were somehow suddenly breakable just because they were pregnant. Their bodies were literally growing a human in them _and_ they continued to go about their daily business. They were badass.

"That's not what I meant." Emily knew she was sensitive about it.

"I'm not going to let you do this alone." Alison shook her head.

"Would you just stop being so stubborn?" Emily grunted in frustration, though she wasn't really angry at Alison so much as she was the situation. "You weren't involved. You didn't hit him. You didn't bury him."

"But I was there." Alison argued.

"You were in shock! He was torturing you, trying to kill you. You were a victim that night, Alison. Because of us." She bit her lip. "Because of what _we_ did…"

Alison's jaw fell slack. So that's what was really on her mind.

"Is that what this is about?" She rubbed Emily's cheek, trying to soothe her.

"Archer never would have come after you if we hadn't given _AD_ a reason to believe you killed Charlotte."

"I know you didn't do it to hurt me. And yes, I was angry." Alison nodded, not denying it. "I was hurt. But Hanna's life was at stake and you guys were scared. I know it wasn't an easy choice to make."

She couldn't deny that it still hurt her to know that her friends, that _Emily_ , thought she was capable of murdering her own sister. But she'd learned to let go.

"Yeah, but we shouldn't have been that careless," Emily sighed. "You were _tortured_ because of us."

"And you and the girls were tortured because of me. _Many_ times." Alison argued back. She wasn't going down without a fight.

But Emily wasn't in the mood for logic. She was riding high on her emotions. Her brain was swirling, spinning out of control.

"God, when I think about what _AD_ did to you in that place…" Emily's voice strained in anger. "How this person violated you…"

This monster had essentially _raped_ Alison and it made Emily so angry that she couldn't see straight. Alison could see, could _feel_ Emily shaking, so she reached out to calm her.

"They did it to you, too, Em." Alison reminded her. Emily often forgot about her own pain in lieu of taking care of her. "They did it to _us_. And they put us in this impossible position. But none of it is _your_ fault."

"But…"

"No." Alison interrupted her, not interested in hearing whatever Emily-logic she had for guilting herself into something that was not her fault. "You have to let go of that guilt. You couldn't have known what _AD_ was planning, what Archer was planning. This is not on us. This is on this twisted sicko bitch, bastard, whatever the hell he, she, it is. Don't let _AD_ get in your head like this. _You're_ not the one who has done something wrong here."

"Except vehicular homicide, aiding and abetting, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice…" Emily laughed darkly.

"Well, if you want to get technical with all the crimes we've committed, I'm pretty sure my list is longer than yours." Alison rolled her eyes with a snarky laugh. "Maybe we were just destined to end up in orange jumpsuits."

Alison sighed and rolled to her side. Emily mirrored her motions. They closed the distance between their bodies. Alison moved against Emily's body, needing to feel her body heat against hers.

"I can be the Piper to your Alex," Alison suggested.

"This isn't _Orange is the New Rosewood_. This is serious, Alison." Emily sighed, brushing some of her hair aside. It fell against her shoulder. "We've come so far. It just doesn't seem fair that this is how it ends, that this is how _AD_ finally gets the win. After everything we've gone through. We deserve better." She peered at Alison. " _You_ deserve better. I mean, you came back from the dead…"

"Yeah. For you." Alison didn't hesitate in her response. It had come out as natural as a breath.

Emily seemed surprised, intrigued, but not entirely shocked. Alison froze, unsure of why she'd suddenly spouted that out. She felt a rush of emotions that were out of her control, and she hated herself for it. Pregnancy hormones were a bitch.

"What do you mean _for me_?" Emily questioned.

After all the years that had gone by, Alison would have thought the truth would be obvious, but had she ever once stopped to tell Emily how she'd truly survived after being buried alive? Not physically, but mentally…emotionally.

"There's a lot I never told you," Alison said, her face reddening. "A lot I might not ever…" _get the chance to tell you._ She stopped herself, because admitting that she may be hauled away from Emily forever was too horrible of a thought. She'd lived a life without Emily on the run, and it had been dreadful. "I know I said and did a lot of things back when we were in high school. I know you and the girls constantly question what was true and what wasn't…"

"We don't anymore." Emily assured her.

"You were right to," Alison said. "I wasn't a good person. And I know it. I can own that. I screwed up, _a lot._ And you…you were always so trusting. I know I hurt you the most. And I think about that every day. But I also think about how damn lucky I was to have you. You stayed even when I didn't deserve you. And I love you for it. I don't think I ever told you that." Her face was ridden with guilt, pain, and a little bit of embarrassment.

"You didn't have to tell me. I knew that." Emily's voice was quiet, nearly a whisper.

"I still should have said something. You deserved more. You deserved better. I'm sorry. For everything. I really am."

"Ali, where is this coming from?" Emily asked curiously.

"I'd love to chalk it up to baby hormones, but the truth is I should have told you this a long time ago. I don't think I ever told you how sorry I was for everything I put you and the girls through back then. You especially. When I told you that you were the hardest one to leave behind I really meant it. Because you were the only person in my life who kept me sane despite my insanity."

"Alison." Emily cupped her face tenderly.

"When I thought I was dying…when my mom…" Her voice caught in her throat. "When all I could taste was the dirt in my lungs, _you_ were the last thought I had. I held on to _you_. I think…" She squinted her eyes in the darkness as she thought about that night. That horrible night. Only one thing had kept her going. "…I _know_ you're the reason I fought. To live. To survive. And then when I got that second chance at life…" She clenched her jaw. "I should have stayed. I should have stuck it out with you and the girls. I should have let you know what you meant to me then. But I was terrified and confused. And then everything happened with _A_ and I ran. But I was wrong. I should have stayed. I never should have left you behind."

Her eyes were brimming with tears. Emily reached up and swiped one away with her thumb.

"That's why I can't let you and the girls take the fall for this alone. I owe you more than that. All of you. I'm not leaving you again." She swallowed hard. "I'm not going to lie. I'm scared. Terrified, actually. And I know you are, too. And I know you want to run, that you want _me_ to run, but speaking from past experience that's not going to solve anything. Baby or not. It doesn't change how I feel. We can't leave. I _won't_ leave. All that escape talk was just a fantasy. _You_ are my reality, no matter where we are."

Emily's brow furrowed and tightened, a mixture of annoyance and being impressed with her unyielding determination. She rolled her eyes in frustration.

"You are the only person in the world I know who is stubborn enough to turn down a 'get out of jail free' card."

"It wouldn't be free," Alison replied softly. "I'd have to live with the guilt of knowing that you and the girls were rotting away behind bars knowing good and well I should be in there with you. It's not right."

"I _want_ to do this." Emily clarified. "Let me do this for us. Please. That way at least one of us can be there for her." She put her hand against Alison's belly again.

For a second, the weight on Alison's shoulder seemed less heavy. It's the first time she'd heard Emily definitively say what she thought the baby's sex was.

"You think it's a girl?" Alison's lips curled up in a smile.

"I do." Emily nodded with a grin.

"How do you know?"

"Because of the morning sickness and the fact that she's so picky with the food you eat. She's a drama queen. Boys eat anything." Emily smiled.

"Boy _or_ girl, I can't imagine any child of _yours_ being a picky eater." Alison smirked, a dual meaning to her tone. "How _did_ dessert taste, by the way?"

It was so unexpected that Emily huffed out a laugh, one so boisterous that it echoed off of the trees. It was a moment of pure joy and elation that they both needed.

"I'll be ready for seconds soon." Emily leaned forward and placed a kiss against her shoulder.

Alison felt a rush of heat flowing to her cheeks as Emily pressed a kiss lower, trailing her hands down to her stomach. She placed a soft kiss against Alison's baby bump and then moved back up to kiss her on the lips.

They peered at one another through the flickering candlelight, neither of them moving. Their minds were fixed on that damn clock again.

"Have you thought about names?" Alison tried to draw Emily out of her thoughts again.

She saw Emily smile.

"You remember when you first told me that you had feelings for me? And then later that night we…"

It was Alison's turn to smile.

"Our first time. Of course." She nodded.

"You had a vase of flowers on your nightstand."

"Yeah. From you. My dad said you stopped by early that morning to give them to me to help me transition back into my first day of school. But he wouldn't let you wake me, so he just gave them to me when I got up. I remember. They were lilies." She paused and thought about something. "Wait, have you been thinking about baby names since _then_?"

"Alison, I used to doodle our names in little hearts on my notebook." She laughed. "I mean, I did dream about having a family with you some day." Though this wasn't exactly what they'd planned. Then again, nothing about their relationship was conventional. "You looked so beautiful in your bed next to those flowers. After that night I just…I couldn't get the name out of my head."

"So…Lily. I like it."

"Lilian Grace."

"Why Grace?"

"Because her mother is the most graceful person I've ever seen."

"Stop." Alison rolled her eyes with a laugh. "You're so cheesy, Em."

"You know you love me." Emily kissed her softly.

"Mmm, I do." Alison nodded. "So, where do you see us raising our little girl?"

"Somewhere warm." Emily glanced up at the sky. "Near the water."

"Is she going to be a swimmer like her mother?"

"If she wants to be. I honestly don't care as long as she's happy."

Alison just stared at her with a smile on her face. Despite everything Emily had been through she was still the same person. She still had that hope for a happy ending. It's why she loved her so much.

Alison saw Emily's gaze drift over to her phone to see what time it was.

"Hey." Alison touched Emily's cheek and swept some of her hair behind her ear. "Don't. We still have a few hours."

She just wanted to stay lost in their fantasy for a few more hours…

"It's not enough time," Emily said, pulling Alison closer to her body.

"It never is." Alison replied sadly.

"We…um…we haven't even talked about what will happen to her if we both end up getting charged for what happened to Archer."

"I have, actually." Alison admitted. "I know it's a really weird situation and all that, but I really want her to go to your mom. We could come up with something to tell her…other than the truth, obviously. With your mom I know she'd be safe and loved. After all, she did a fantastic job with her first baby."

"I could get behind that." Emily nodded. "She would love our baby to pieces." She looked down sadly. "Or we could go with my fail-safe option."

"Which is?"

Emily pulled Alison's hand up to her lips and kissed her knuckles. Alison smiled softly at her. They laid in silence for a few seconds. Then Emily heaved out a sigh.

"If I can't convince you to plead innocent then I have no other choice but to drug you and stick you on a plane to Paris."

She was joking, but only partly. She had thought about buying Alison a one-way ticket and then convincing Jason to get her on the plane before the girls turned themselves in.

"If I wake up in a foreign country while you and the girls are being martyrs here in Rosewood I will come back with a vengeance and strangle you, Emily Fields." Alison threatened. "You'd _need_ to be behind bars to protect your ass."

Emily couldn't help but laugh. Her hand moved to Alison's belly again and Alison reached down and put her hand on top of Emily's.

"There is not a chance in hell I'm leaving you, so you just get that through your head. I meant what I said. I want to do this." She curled her fingers into Emily's palm. " _With_ you. Not with you behind bars. Not with you being tortured or dead because of _AD_. This baby is going to have _both_ of her moms. We're in this together. _You_ taught me that. That we're stronger together."

"Damn, why did I have to be such a diplomatic teacher?" Emily shook her head.

"I'm putting an end to this argument, okay?" Alison pushed her lips against Emily's. She had her attention. "Now kiss me and tell me you love me, and just let me hold you."

Emily's lips curled into a smile. She loved her so much. She really did. She moved forward, capturing Alison's lips.

"You're infuriating." Emily whispered against her lips.

"I know." Alison replied, pecking Emily's mouth.

"But I love you." She pecked back.

"I love you, too, Em," she said softly, smiling. "We'll figure it out. We always do."

They didn't hear the ticking of the clock anymore. Because they had all the time in the world as long as they had one another.


	4. Loss

**A/N:** _A few quick answers to reviews: To the Fan Reader wondering about the dynamic in the new fetus Emison fic...it's AU, so their personalities aren't fully based on how they were in the PLL-verse in high school. Both Alison and Emily have strong personalities in my story. IrishViking20: I made up the thing about the lilies in the last one-shot. I just thought that their baby's name would have some significance to their relationship._

 _I also got a question about whether I'm still considering posting the Epilogue and Alternate ending to "Still Waters Run Deep". I am. I'm just shadow-boxing with myself about editing them both._

* * *

 **Prompt: Could you do a drabble were Alison has a miscarriage please?**

* * *

 _Warning: Please note that the subject material for this is heavy and it is not something I take lightly. It hits very close to home. The loss of an infant is a delicate thing that has an impact on that baby's family's lives forever. This is an extremely sensitive subject that widely affects parents everywhere. Any time I am writing something this raw and real I worry about the impact it might have on readers. _

_Much like my 9-11 oneshot I had to really consider whether or not this was something I wanted to put out there, because the last thing I want to do is peel open healing wounds of anyone who has dealt with this. However, with last month having been Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month I am also aware that this is a subject that is considered worth talking about. Every single baby that has been lost is WORTH remembering._

 _That being said, I do urge anyone who is sensitive about it to proceed with caution._

 _Every experience is different, and I only hope that I was able to write this particular scenario with Alison and Emily respectfully and in a tactful way. To anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby, know that my heart is with you. Always._

 _Note that it's a lengthy prompt. I did not want to rush this one._

* * *

 _ **Loss**_

Three words changed Emily DiLaurentis-Fields' life and the life of her entire family. Three words.

 _"Something is wrong."_

Alison had been feeling off all day. Emily had taken the day off to care for her. Alison's first pregnancy had been somewhat difficult, but it was a breeze compared to her second one.

She'd felt nauseated and crampy all morning. Emily thought they should go to the doctor, but Alison insisted she just needed to rest. She was tired, nothing more. And while Emily conceded to Alison's wishes, she still felt a strange uneasiness needling the back of her brain.

Emily could feel it. It was the same twisted feeling she'd felt in the pit of her stomach the day her dad had died. Something was wrong.

There was something off about Alison, and it worried her. She'd practically spent the entire day hovering over her and pacing so much that she was wearing a hole in the carpet.

Alison was worried about how jittery she was. But she was so focused on Emily that she didn't realize that her own body was trying to tell her something. A sensation, a warning. It's like the Earth had slowed on its axis and the clouds were drifting down around her…and her family. The family she was _expecting._ But she shook it off, her attention focused more on wondering why the hell Emily was acting like the world was crashing down around them.

She didn't know that very soon, it _was_ going to come crashing down.

An hour later when Alison felt the first spasm of pain she knew her morning sickness was something more.

She called out for Emily, but Emily couldn't hear her over the sound of the microwave downstairs in the kitchen. She was heating up Alison's tea for her and making her some soup for dinner.

Alison felt an odd pressure against her stomach and suddenly, she felt like she had to pee. So she sat up against the edge of the bed and put her swollen feet against the ground.

She glanced over her baby bump at her toes. It dawned on her how strange it was that she was already retaining so much water when she was only halfway into her pregnancy.

When she was pregnant with the twins she'd made it to almost the eighth month before her feet and ankles had started swelling. But that had been twelve years ago.

Maybe her body had changed, she rationalized.

She felt another tight spasm in her pelvis and then another stab of pain. She huffed as she got to her feet. She thought she felt movement inside of her belly, but it wasn't a motion she was used to. It wasn't a kick or the twists and turns of the baby trying to settle.

Something was wrong.

She tried to push the worst thoughts out of her head. The last ultrasound two weeks ago had been fine. Her son was fine. Three nights ago he'd been kicking up a storm. Lily and Grace had taken turns putting their hand on her belly and marveling at their little brother's strength. Lily said she thought he was going to be a ninja. Grace was convinced he was going to be a kicker for the NFL.

Alison stood up, feeling a liquid leaking into her pants. She clenched her thighs together to try and hold her urine until she could get to the bathroom.

She was halfway to the adjoining bathroom when something tightened roughly in her pelvis. The pain was so intense that she fell forward, grasping at the side of the dresser. She cried out and started huffing out unsteady breaths. She groaned.

"Alison?" She heard Emily's concerned voice behind her.

Alison glanced over her shoulder and saw Emily holding a tray with a bowl of soup and a mug of hot herbal tea. Emily saw the look of pain contorted on Alison's face. She immediately put the tray down on top of the small armoire by the door.

"Ali? What is it?"

Alison cried out, _shrieked_ , in pain. Emily was by her side in an instant.

"Emily, something is wrong." She cried.

 _Something is wrong._

The words terrified them both.

Alison reached down into her pants because she'd felt a warm wetness pooling in her underwear. It was too early for her to go into labor, so she knew it wasn't her water breaking. But she also knew at this point it wasn't urine either.

When she pulled her fingers out covered in blood her face blanched. She felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and doubled over. Alison looked at Emily, tears filling her eyes. When was the last time she'd felt their son moving? He'd been still most of the day. He hadn't been active at all yesterday either.

"I can't feel him moving anymore." She suddenly felt panicky.

More blood was soaking through her clothing. Alison moaned, grabbing Emily's arm for support. She tugged at the hem of her maternity pants, desperately trying to pull them down, because she knew…she _knew_ what was happening. And she wasn't going to let it happen.

"Baby, you should sit down…"

But Alison was too frantic to hear her. She moved her pants down, almost falling over in the process. She cried in frustration when another wave of pain hit her and she had to stop moving because the movement made it worse.

"Hey, take it easy." Emily put her hand on top of Alison's, helping her steady herself as they worked her pants and underwear down to take a look. Her thighs were soaked in blood. It was dripping down her legs. She started to sink to the ground on her knees. Emily caught her before she hit the floor.

"Emily, I don't feel right." Alison's head started sagging on her shoulders.

"Hey, Alison, look at me." Emily put her free hand on Alison's cheek.

But Alison couldn't focus. Another sharp pain rocked her body and she screamed out in pain.

"Oh, God. It hurts." She cried, squeezing Emily's arm so tight that her fingernails dug into her skin, drawing blood. It was worse than labor pains. Because at least with the labor pains she'd had with Lily and Grace she knew she'd get to see the light in their eyes when they were born. "It's too early. This can't happen yet…" Another stabbing pain. Another cry. "Emily!"

"Ali, you're going to be okay. Just…"

"He's in distress." Alison cried. "I can feel it." She groaned. "Em…" She weakly raised her head to look at her wife. "Promise me if it comes down to me or him you'll choose him."

Nineteen weeks was almost five months. Micro-preemies could make it. Against all odds. And she knew her son was strong. There had to be a way. He had to survive. She couldn't be losing him. She'd done everything right. It wasn't fair. It couldn't happen.

"Hey, it's not going to come to that." Emily tried to stay calm.

 _Please God, don't let it come to that._ Emily wasn't sure she could make that call if it did.

Alison saw stars. Her vision started to fade.

"Alison, hold on."

Another bolt of pain. Another agonized scream. Followed by silence. Chill-inducing, heart-stopping silence. Alison slunk down into Emily's body, her large belly pushing her into an awkward position. Emily moved her around until she was behind Alison, propping her up, trying to rouse her.

"Mom?" A timid voice whimpered from the doorway.

When Emily looked up she saw Grace staring at the blood pooling on the floor. She looked like she was ready to pass out…or throw up.

"Grace, I need you to call 911." Emily shifted so she was kneeling behind her wife, getting ready to pick her up.

Grace, her normally wildly disobedient brat of a child did exactly as she was told, probably for the first time in her life. She couldn't find her phone so she ran into Lily's room in a panic.

"Something is wrong with mom." Grace had tears in her eyes. "I think it's the baby. We need to call an ambulance, but I can't find my fucking phone." She growled in frustration.

"What?" Lily scrambled off of her bed, knocking her math book and several sheets of paper on to the floor.

She grabbed her phone and quickly called 911. The second the operator answered Lily nervously spouted out,

"Our mom is pregnant and something is wrong and we need help."

"What if he dies? Or mom?" Grace started to hyperventilate. "What if they both die?"

"Hey, calm down, Grace." Lily tried to comfort her.

Lily split her focus between Grace and the 911 operator as they both ran down the hallway towards their mothers' room.

Emily slid one of her arms underneath Alison's knees and her other arm underneath Alison's shoulders, pulling her off of the ground. Alison's head lolled on her shoulders, her eyes weakly opening up. She looked up at Emily, a pitiful expression in her eyes.

"Emily…"

"Just hang on. We're going to get you to the hospital." Emily started walking out of their room towards the hallway. "Everything is okay, Ali. I've got you."

"We called 911," Lily said, her hands trembling, the phone still in her hand.

The call was still connected. Emily could hear the operator trying to say something, but her focus was on getting Alison safely down the steps. When she got downstairs, she gently laid Alison down against the couch.

Alison groggily opened her eyes, looking at her. She started to cry. Emily wiped away her tears. Neither one of them had the words to express the pain they felt.

They heard a stifled sniffle behind them and when Emily looked over her shoulder she saw her twelve year old twins. They looked like terrified toddlers.

"I accidentally hung up on 911." Lily whimpered.

"It's going to be okay girls." Emily reached out to take the phone.

But she didn't call 911 back. Instead, she called her best friend. Because she knew the girls needed to be looked after. She didn't want them at the hospital. She didn't want their memories of this to be any worse than they already were. She didn't want them to sit in stiff waiting room chairs in a hallway that reeked of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, and death.

Hanna had picked up after one ring. She and Emily had been texting all day about how Alison wasn't feeling well. So when Hanna answered, she felt a tense ball in the pit of her stomach telling her something was wrong.

"Em, is everything okay?"

"No." Emily didn't realize how much she was shaking until she heard the sound of her voice. "I'm going to the hospital with Alison. Can you come over and sit with the girls?"

"I'll be there in five minutes." Three if she ran the stop signs and red lights, which she absolutely planned on doing.

She hung up and bolted for her car just as the ambulance was pulling into the DiLaurentis-Fields' driveway. The girls saw the flashing lights. There was a moment of panic from the twins. Grace started to cry. Lily was calm, but shaky. She grabbed her mom's arm gently.

"Mom, we want to go with you." Lily had tears in her eyes.

"I know, baby. But you and Grace need to stay here. It's for the best. Your Aunt Hanna will take care of you. And I'm going to take care of your mom."

"What about the baby?" Grace questioned. "Will you take care of him, too?"

"Oh, sweetie." Emily reached out to brush Grace's tears away. She didn't know how to explain what was going on to them, not without breaking down. "Look, whatever happens, we'll get through it together."

"Is he going to die?" Grace asked.

"Grace!" Lily hissed, almost in a panic, like the question was going to jinx the situation, like their little brother's fate was in their hands and that if they thought only good thoughts nothing bad would happen to him.

"I don't know what's going to happen. But I promise you we'll let you know something as soon as we know. Now, you be good for your Aunt Hanna."

The girls didn't argue.

Hanna got there just as they were loading Alison into the ambulance.

"The girls are inside." Emily blinked in shock when she saw Hanna rushing towards her.

"Hey, I'll take care of them. You just take care of Ali."

Emily nodded. She didn't realize she was crying. Hanna reached up, brushing her thumbs against her best friend's cheek.

"I can't believe this is happening." Emily's body shook with sobs.

"Just breathe, Emily. Ali needs you right now."

That's all Emily needed to hear to get ahold of herself. She hugged Hanna before she climbed into the ambulance with her wife. Emily waited until they were on the road, then she called her mother in tears, telling her what was going on.

Alison was in and out the whole way to the hospital. She was bleeding a lot and she was dizzy from the pain and the blood loss. The shock had hit her hard. But she was fully aware of her surroundings when they were wheeling her into the emergency room. The pain of the contractions was more intense than the ones she'd had with Lily and Grace. Or perhaps she was just in a weaker state.

She looked around the room. The lights felt so bright. The air felt cold. There were people in scrubs running all around. The only thing that brought her any comfort was seeing Emily by her side. She had squeezed her hand so much that Emily had lost feeling in her fingers.

Alison felt a cool gel oozing on to her belly, but unlike when they'd gotten their sonograms there was no tittering excitement in the room. The doctor frowned at the ultrasound image. Alison was somewhat cognizant of the doctor talking to them, telling them their worst fears.

Yet despite knowing what she knew, Alison still fought the urge to push. Because it was too early. And what if the doctors were wrong? What if their son was okay? What if they were missing something? What if there was something more that could be done?

"Alison, we need you to push." The doctor urged.

"No." Alison cried weakly.

"Ali…" She heard Emily's shaky voice.

"No!" She hissed angrily at her wife.

She was mad at Emily, because why wasn't she fighting this? Why wasn't she screaming at the doctors to do something? Why was she so quick to believe the worst? Why wasn't she _stopping_ this? She knew it was irrational, but she didn't care. Because…

No. Alison couldn't accept it. She refused to believe this could actually be happening. Just days ago their little bug had been kicking up a storm. Just two weeks ago they were watching him swirl around in his 3D sonogram. He looked like he was deep in thought, leaning on his knuckles as if he had a very serious matter on his mind: like what was better? Hot Fries or Curly Fries? The real life questions their genius son would ask.

She broke down in tears. Of pain. Of exhaustion. Of anger. Of fear.

"Emily, I don't want to. Please don't let them make me do this. I want to go home." She begged.

Hearing the words ripped Emily's heart to shreds. What was worse than losing their son was watching the pain on Alison's face as she tried to come to terms with it, of seeing Alison try to bargain with the inevitable. Emily felt helpless. Because all she wanted to do was swoop in and save her. To stop this from happening. But she couldn't. She was angry at herself. Angry for not being more insistent, for not doing something more.

"Please, can we go home?" Alison cried.

Because if they went home none of this would happen. She would be fine. Their son would be fine.

"I know you're scared. And I know you're hurting. But I'm right here, honey." Emily put her other hand over their joined fingers, cupping Alison's hand in hers. "I'm right here and I'm not going to let you do this alone."

"Tell me this isn't real." Alison whimpered.

"I can't do that." Emily's voice came out as a trembling cry.

Alison's body was contracting and pulsating and she felt like screaming, because her brain and her heart were in a battle to the death with one another. Her brain told her the truth. She'd heard what was said to her, but she couldn't mentally process it. She couldn't comprehend it, because her heart was telling her not to give up. Her heart told her that maybe there was still hope.

It was a nightmare. It had to be. Some angry inner demon playing on an expectant mother's worst fear. She shut her eyes tightly, begging to wake up, begging for the dream to end.

Another wave of contractions hit her and she shot up in the bed and screamed. She saw the doctor sitting between her knees, her feet still in the stirrups. She was still here. She was still in her nightmare, in this hospital room with all these somber faces.

Still, she refused to push. She turned to Emily crying,

"This isn't real." She repeated. "This is a nightmare."

"Ali…"

But she shut Emily out. She closed her eyes, images of the pregnancy flashing through her mind. The countless fertility treatments they'd done. The joy on their faces when the pregnancy test came back positive. Listening to his little heartbeat for the first time. Telling the twins. Telling their friends. Coming up with his name. Planning everything about what they'd do after he was born.

"I'm having a nightmare. I want to wake up. Emily, tell me to wake up."

Emily lowered her head, trying to hold in her tears, trying to hold it together for her wife. Her heart was thrumming so fast she felt dizzy. She was vaguely aware of a nurse asking her if she was okay. She brushed her off, telling her she was fine. Though, for a few seconds she thought she was going to pass out.

But she forced herself to ignore her own pain and focus on Alison. She moved in closer to her wife. She placed a firm, yet delicate kiss against Alison's sweaty temple. She could actually taste her wife's pain on her lips.

"Baby, we're losing him. I'm so sorry, but we're losing him." Emily said it out loud. She needed to hear it just as much as Alison, because it was real. Whether they wanted it to be or not, it was real.

"We…we're not. It's just…he's going to be okay."

"Alison, listen to me. If you don't do what the doctors say we could lose you, too. The girls and I could lose you." She glanced at the machines monitoring Alison. She knew they were dangerously close to an emergency situation with Alison. "I know you don't want to…" _She_ didn't want her to. Emily wanted to wake up from this nightmare, too. "But I can't lose you, too, Ali. I can't…"

Alison saw the desperation in Emily's face. And she knew she had no choice but to do as the doctor told her. He counted slowly, coaching her through as if it were a completely normal labor.

She had flashes to when the girls were born, her memories of that day full of brightness and happiness compared to the dark and dreary clouds looming in the hospital today. She wasn't sure what was being ripped apart more: her birth canal or her heart. She pushed, panted, and cried. And Emily was by her side the entire time.

"One more push…" The doctor had his hands up in between her legs.

"I can't." Alison cried. Not physically. Not emotionally. She just couldn't. She couldn't bring her son into this world just to lose him.

"Baby, you have to." Emily squeezed her hand, her eyes full of tears. She pressed her forehead against Alison's temple, lightly kissing the top of her jaw. "You have to."

Alison felt one final contraction and she yelped. She took a breath and looked at Emily for support, her big brown eyes telling her what she'd been saying all along: _I'm here._ She squeezed Emily's hand and let out a sob as she bore down.

There were no cries of joy from the mothers. There was no crying coming from the tiny little soul that was in the doctor's hands. The room was silent. And the silence was the loudest noise in the world.

Alison fell back against the bed, breathless sobs rocking her body. Emily pushed up as close as she could get to her, crawling against the side of the bed just so she could hold her. It was almost an effortless movement, a natural reaction to be there for her. Alison gripped her shirt tightly in her fingers, twisting the fabric as her tears soaked her clothing. Emily soothingly stroked the back of her head.

Their moment was broken up by the sounds of shuffling at the foot of the bed. The doctor cleared his throat. When they looked at him they saw a tiny bundled cloth in his hand and they knew their son was wrapped inside of it.

"Would you like to see your son?" His voice was soft, delicate. It almost sounded broken, despite the fact that he'd probably had to do this thousands of times before.

Alison couldn't bring herself to look, but Emily couldn't look away. She moved forward to see her baby. He was tiny. So small that he could fit in the palm of the doctor's hand. His brownish-red skin was thin and she could see his microscopic little threadlike veins that had once been coursing with life underneath his paper-thin skin. His eyes were closed, not fully developed yet. His arms were the size of Emily's pinky finger.

His little hands and feet were tiny, probably no bigger than the size of a dime. He had all ten fingers and all ten toes. His hands, hands that would never reach out for his mommies, were curled against his chest. His tiny feet – feet that would never touch the ground, feel the grass between his toes, feel the sand on the beach – were crossed at the ankles. He looked like a little doll that had been preserved in a shining coat of wax.

He looked beautiful to her. She felt her emotions bubbling to the surface, but she still refused to break down. Not in front of her wife. She had to be strong for Alison.

"Would you like to hold him?" The doctor offered.

Emily felt Alison shift, her curiosity getting the better of her. Emily looked at the exhausted blonde. Alison looked back at her and nodded silently, tears still streaming down her face.

They took turns holding him, telling him how much they loved him and how perfect he was. They spoke to him, they sang to him, they kissed his tiny fragile little body. They laid in the bed together for what felt like the longest time before a nurse came in, offering to take him so they could make molds of his handprint and footprint for them.

She took their tiny little boy from them, turning to offer to bring him right back with a cooling system for him so they could spend as much time with him as they wanted. But Alison told Emily she couldn't say goodbye to him again, so they told their son they loved him one final time before he was taken out of their lives for the last time.

When the nurse walked out Alison started to cry again. Emily pulled her close as she wept. The keening wails that echoed throughout the room didn't sound human. It was the primal cries that only came with the loss of a child. Emily held her, rocking her as she cried.

The thoughts going through Alison's mind were the loudest things she'd ever heard. What had happened? Why them? How long ago had it happened? When had it happened? Could they have done something more? If they had come to the hospital this morning like Emily had wanted would he still be alive? Or had it happened days ago and she'd just been carrying on as normal?

And the loudest question of all…

"Was…was it me? Did I do something wrong?" Alison sniffled.

"Oh, honey…" Emily reached out, stroking her cheek. "Baby, no."

"Then why did this happen? What happened to our little boy?"

Emily didn't have an answer, and it killed her. All she could do was hold her and be there for her.

They slowly let their friends and family know. Hanna made several phone calls for them, and then per their request, brought the twins to the hospital so they could be there with them when they got the news. Both girls sobbed and cried until they had no tears left to cry. They took the loss of their little brother incredibly hard.

They had a few visitors in the hospital, but for the most part their friends didn't want to overwhelm them, so they sent cards and flowers and all of their love. People didn't talk much about miscarriages. They didn't know how, and that was okay. Because it was better to hear a generic "I love you" than for someone to say the wrong thing. Sometimes the best thing to do was say nothing, and to act out of love instead.

Sometimes just being there was enough. So that's what their friends did. They loved them. A hand squeeze here. A hug there. A warm meal, or four. A realistic "I'm sorry. This fucking sucks. I love you," compliments of Hanna.

When they got home Emily busied herself taking care of Alison and the girls. The days went by in a haze. They had to go through something that they never in their wildest dreams thought they'd have to go through: picking out a tiny casket for their baby and planning a service for his burial.

The service was beautiful, a bittersweet testament to the impact the little boy had made upon their lives and the lives of their friends and family.

Emily managed to hold it together, throughout the service and the following days. She was Alison's rock. It was only when she was sorting through the nursery with Hanna one day when the girls were at school and Alison was asleep that she felt the feelings of grief consuming her.

She came across a little onesie her son would never get to wear. It was the one they'd picked out to bring him home from the hospital in. Of course, he'd been way too small for it at birth, so they'd buried him in something different.

"Em, I found some of Lily's and Grace's old baby toys. Do you want me to…"

When she turned around she saw Emily sinking down against the crib with the onesie in her hands, clutching it like a lifeline. Tears were streaming down her face. She started taking sharp harsh breaths. She couldn't breathe.

"Oh, Em…" Her best friend quickly crawled beside her and engulfed her in a hug.

Truth be told, it was a relief for Hanna to see her finally letting go. The girls had been worried that she'd been holding everything inside. She'd showed very little emotion at the hospital and at the service. They knew she was trying to keep it together for her wife, but they also knew it was in her nature to internalize until it nearly killed her. They knew that it was only a matter of time before it consumed her. Hanna was thankful she was there when it happened.

"Han…" She held the onesie near her face, imagining him wearing it, imagining what he'd look like in it, what he'd smell like…

"I know." Hanna replied soothingly. "I know, Em."

"He's gone." She choked.

Hanna knew there wasn't anything she could say to make it any better, so she just held her and let her cry. They stayed in their embrace for several minutes.

They heard a shuffling noise. When they looked up they saw Alison standing at the door. She walked towards them, slowly, almost ghost-like.

Emily dropped the onesie in surprise and wiped her cheeks, but she couldn't stop the tears from flowing. She didn't want her wife to see her like this. She didn't want to worsen her grief.

"Ali, I…"

"Emily, it's okay." Alison felt her eyes filling with tears. She leaned down next to her wife, putting her palm against her damp cheek.

Hanna moved back, letting them have their space. She pulled the onesie off of the floor and stood up.

"You're supposed to be in bed resting," Emily said, her nose completely stuffed up from her crying jag.

"I want you with me." Alison felt a tear slip down her face.

She knew Emily needed her just as much as she needed Emily. Emily needed to grieve, too. Alison was aware that the brunette had yet to face her own feelings because she was too busy trying to protect hers. She knew Emily needed to rest, too.

"You can't hold it in forever, Em." Alison wiped away some of Emily's tears. "Come on." She held out her hand.

Emily didn't resist. Her entire body was aching with a pain that was more than physical. She followed Alison into their room. They crawled into the bed, Alison reaching out to wrap her arms around her wife. And for the first time, they cried, they _grieved_ together.

In the following days and weeks they leaned on one another more than they ever had in the past. The pain never went away, but it got easier to manage with time. Losing a baby was very much like losing a part of one's soul. Their son had taken a piece of both of them with him.

There wasn't a day that went by that they didn't think of him. Of the birthdays he would never celebrate. Of the adventures he would never get to have. Of the goodnight kisses he'd never experience. They wondered what his first words would have been, what his laugh would have sounded like, and if he would have had a favorite bedtime story.

They often thought about things like how much he would have loved his big sisters or what his first day of school would have been like. Who he would have befriended. What he would have learned. How he would have changed society. Every time they saw a child exploring the playground, learning how to ride a bike, or taking their first steps they thought of him.

As a reminder of the impact he had on those around him they had the mold of his little hands and feet in a small casing on their mantle, along with a small golden plate with his name.

 _Samuel Wayne Fields  
"It is the smallest souls that leave behind everlasting love. Forever in our hearts."_

And those hearts were broken, but Alison and Emily wouldn't have their hearts be shattered for anything less. The heavy grief they had for him was because of the insurmountable amount of love they felt for him. That love was what they tried to hold on to. He was gone, but the imprint he had left on their hearts would last forever. They held that little boy in their hearts every second of every day.

And they always would.


	5. Bet

**A/N:** _Aww, your reviews keep me thriving. I was very nervous about sharing the previous prompt, because I know it's a hard-hitting one. It's probably the darkest of my prompts. Right now I've mostly just got the rest of my Emison family fun prompts to move over from tumblr. I think for the most part these prompts follow a storyline, though this was not an intended story. The asks were from many different dates and they're out of order on tumblr. It's just my anal-retentive nature trying to keep things in order. Also, the AU fetus Emison fic is coming very soon. Believe it or not the only thing holding me back right now is arguing with myself about the title.  
_

* * *

 **Prompt:** **I have an emison prompt: Alison and Emily finding out they are having a baby the second time around Alison is pregnant. And they have a bet on what they are having.**

* * *

 **Bet**

Emily's eyes were closed in concentration. She delicately massaged her fingers against her wife's exposed skin. Alison reached down and tucked her fingers underneath Emily's chin, drawing her wife's attention away from her little protruding baby bump and up to her face.

Alison couldn't help but smile at Emily's dedication to making sure her pregnancy was as stress-free and relaxing as possible. That's how they'd ended up snuggled on the couch, Emily talking to their growing little one. Emily had become very enamored in her conversation with their unborn baby while she was trying to determine the sex. Emily rubbed her palm over Alison's belly and focused in on it in deep concentration.

"It's a baby, Em. Not a magic 8-ball." Alison laughed.

"I know." Emily rubbed her belly again with a smile. She pressed her lips against Alison's exposed skin right below the midriff on her shirt. "Talk to me, little nugget."

"Again, a baby. Not gonna talk…" She was cut off when she felt movement, a kick.

Emily smiled and looked up at Alison.

"You were saying?"

"That was just a coincidence."

"Oh, really?" Emily lifted her brow. "Kick your mommy's bladder if you can hear me."

"That's not funny, Emily. I already practically pee myself every fifteen minutes as it is…"

"She loves you despite her complaining." Emily assured the little fetus.

Alison felt movement, a reaction to Emily's voice. Alison couldn't help but smile.

"Okay, real important question here, peanut." Emily spoke soothingly. "No pressure."

"You are ridiculous." Alison laughed.

"Maybe. But my methods work. I have a sixth sense for this."

"If that's true why didn't you know we were having twins the last time?" She motioned to their twelve-year-old girls sitting across the living room playing a video game.

"Shh, I'm doing important work here." Emily shushed her jokingly. "Okay, baby." Emily addressed Alison's stomach again. "Now, are you a little girl…"

She waited a few seconds. No motion. No movement. No kick.

"So, you're a baby boy, then?"

Unbelievably, there was a kick.

"Fool-proof Fields method." Emily nodded. "My dad did it when my mom was pregnant with me, and he was right. So I'm casting my ballot. My vote is baby boy." Emily grinned, rubbing Alison's stomach. "My little man."

"God, if he is a boy he's totally screwed. As if his mommies aren't hormonal enough, he's going to have to contend with two moody teenage sisters."

"You guys know we can hear you, right?" Grace looked up from the TV, a video game controller in her hand.

"Ha! Suck it, Grace!" Lily took the opportunity to edge Grace out of the game they were playing.

"Hey, no fair. I paused it for a reason…"

"Yeah, because you're a sucker." Lily grinned.

"Moms, she's being mean to me…"

"She's gloating. There's a difference." Emily shrugged.

"Punish her for gloating." Grace demanded.

"Not my fault that you can't beat me."

Grace's cheeks flushed red in anger. It wasn't uncommon for them to fight every day, sometimes three to four times a day, about who was better at what. Grace _hated_ to lose. When she was a toddler she'd throw tantrums. Lily had beat her at Candyland once and Grace had yanked on her hair and stabbed her with a game piece. Everything was a competition with the two of them.

"Pay up, loser." Lily flipped her hand over, palm up. She gestured slightly with her fingers curling towards her body.

Grace looked at her mothers and then at her sister, an idea suddenly coming to mind. She'd heard all the adults talking about whether her moms were going to be having a boy or a girl. They had even taken it as far as placing bets on it. Grace decided she wanted in on the action.

"How about another game?" Grace asked.

"Come on, I've already beat you three times. You really want to keep embarrassing yourself?"

"No. A different one. And the odds are 50-50. Gives us both a fair shot. But it's a long game."

"I'm listening." Lily was intrigued.

"So you're in?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Let's take this pot and add a buy in of ten bucks for the new game. Fixed odds. Double or nothing," Grace said.

"Who the hell taught you gambling terms?" Alison frowned.

Grace's and Lily's eyes both flickered towards Emily. Emily glared back at them for throwing her under the bus.

"Did you teach our children to gamble?" Alison exclaimed.

" _Teach_ is kind of a strong word. They _may_ have stayed up late with me and the girls for a few poker nights."

Alison's jaw dropped, but it had nothing to do with teaching their children how to gamble. She was upset for another reason.

"You play poker without me?"

"Baby, you know I love you, but you give away too much with your tells."

The most ironic thing about Alison being one of the biggest liars in Rosewood when she was a kid was the fact that now that she was grown, she couldn't bluff for shit anymore, _especially_ not when she was pregnant and emotional.

"That shouldn't matter." Alison sulked. "We're supposed to be in this marriage together. Through better or worse, through wins and losses…"

"I won two grand the last time I played without you." Emily interrupted her.

"Shutting up." Alison nodded.

"So, girls, you want in on the action of the baby pool?" Emily smiled at her twins.

They were just as mischievous and devious as she and Alison had been when they were younger.

"Yeah." They replied in sync.

"I dunno. What do you think, Alison?" Emily asked with a teasing smile on her face.

"I think I gave birth to two suckers and it's mean to let them practically give us their money." Alison joked. "But they've got to learn somehow. Better at home than at the tracks."

"So you'll let us play?" Lily smiled in excitement.

Emily nodded.

"There are three polls going, but only two big ones. The first is whether it's a boy or a girl. And the second is the day you think your mom is going to give birth."

"What's the third one?" Grace asked curiously.

Emily looked at Alison in amusement. Alison glared at her, warning her not to tell the girls.

"How many times your mother swears in the delivery room."

"Ohhh, I _definitely_ want in on that one. If it's anything like her road rage, I could clean up with my winnings of that one." Lily smiled.

"You're grounded until you're thirty-five." Alison scowled at her eldest daughter.

After a few seconds a smile spread across her face and the two of them laughed.

Lily stood up and walked over to her moms. She looked over Alison's stomach as if it was a difficult word problem that needed to be solved. She flipped her tongue in between her teeth and tried to decide. Ever the scientist, she was looking for any factor that could steer her in the right direction. Also, gambling with her sister was serious business. She _had_ to win.

"When you were pregnant with us did your belly stick up or hang low?"

Alison looked at Emily, and though she couldn't say what she was thinking, Emily picked up on her train of thought,

 _She makes it sound like a dick._

Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe it was part of her scientific process. Or maybe her mommies just had filthy minds.

"I carried mostly in the middle with you girls. I started showing pretty early, but then again there were two of you."

"Aunt Hanna suggested that it's going to be twins again." Grace smirked.

"You're not allowed to hang out with your Aunt Hanna anymore," Alison said dryly.

God help them if they ended up with another set of twins. They loved Lily and Grace, but they couldn't do two babies again. Not on top of the surly kids they already had.

Lily took her mom's answer into account and then her face tightened in concentration. She looked a lot like Emily when she was trying to mentally work something out.

"What kind of cravings did you get with us?" Lily glanced at their half-eaten dinner on the coffee table.

"Sweet. Always sweet. I ate entire box of chocolates on Halloween." Then she'd promptly puked. "I also had a thing for dill pickle chips."

"Yeah, and always at like two in the morning." Emily scoffed.

"So you're the reason I love pickles." Grace nodded.

"Were there any smells that made you nauseous?" Lily asked.

"Coffee."

"So basically you couldn't hang out with Aunt Spencer at all." Lily laughed. "Anything else?"

"Pine needles."

"Oh, yeah." Emily nodded. "Christmas was hell for you."

Alison had insisted on letting Emily decorate a real tree even though it made her sick to her stomach. She knew how much Emily loved Christmas.

"Was there anything…"

"For God's sake, Lily, just bet already!" Grace exclaimed impatiently.

Lily looked at Grace with a snooty expression.

"I think mom is right." Lily looked at Emily. "I think it's a boy."

"And how did you _scientifically_ conclude that?" Grace snorted.

"Simple." She walked over to her sister and plopped down next to her with a smile. "Mom is always right."

Emily grinned. Alison hit her for gloating.

"Well, I think it's a girl." Grace disagreed.

"Why?"

"I don't have to tell you my methods."

"You're just saying it's a girl because I think it's a boy."

"No, I'm agreeing with mom." She pointed to Alison. "She said the other day that the baby was bitching at her. _Girls_ do that."

"You curse in front of our children?" Emily looked at Alison with a smile on her face. "And you give me crap for letting them play poker."

"Ah _ha_! You _do_ let them play!" Alison pointed an accusatory finger at Emily.

Emily reached over and pinched Alison's side where she was ticklish and she almost leaped off of the couch. Alison glared at her, but then laughed. Grace and Lily glanced at one another and rolled their eyes, because their moms were like so _totally ridiculously_ mushy.

They went back to trash talking one another over their video game while Emily and Alison watched. They didn't have much else to do but wait. Because the new game they were playing was a long game. They had another three weeks before they knew whether they were going to have a baby brother or a baby sister.


	6. Overdue

**A/N:** _I just wanted to let everyone know I do see the prompt ideas in the reviews. Prompts for me are usually spur of the moment, so it's entirely possible that I'll think about something someone asked about months from now and be like, "Oh, I'm going to do that." Now, someone side-eye fanfic for me because I'm working on the draft for the new fetus Emison fic and keep getting weird intermittent "503" errors of doom. It's been a while since the site has crashed. We're due for another "fanfic is down" day soon._

 _But until then, enjoy another Fam-Emison. Didn't mean to leave you guys hanging with the bet. The sex of the baby was actually something that was pre-determined because I had other prompts before I wrote the one with the bet. Like I said, the writing jumps around on these a lot, because of the way I've posted on tumblr._

 _However, to make up for the unintentional cliff-hanger, I've actually added a few bonus scenes into this prompt (regarding the bet), so it's a little different than when I first posted on tumblr._

* * *

 **Prompt: I remember that a couple of months ago I saw some post here where you said that if Ali was pregnant again she would like tell the fetus to evict if she went over her due date and I found it really funny. So I was wondering if you could do a prompt like that? **

* * *

_**Overdue**_

There is nothing worse than being pregnant and past your due date. It was a certain kind of hell that Alison DiLaurentis-Fields wouldn't wish upon her worst enemy, and in her life she'd made _a ton_ of enemies.

She was uncomfortable all the time. Her back hurt. Her boobs were sore. She constantly had indigestion. She was always hot and sweaty and felt gross. She was anxious about how big the baby was getting, because clearly he was going to have to come out of her. Her feet were the size of a Yeti's feet. She looked like an overblown beached whale. She had trouble sitting up and she barely fit through the door anymore. And she had to pee _all the time_.

She and Emily had tried everything they could think of to try and get her labor started, not that Alison looked forward to the labor pains. But a few agonizing hours was worth finally being able to get comfortable again, and hold their son of course. But being uncomfortable took precedence over the baby at the moment, because she was so frustrated.

Their friend Aria had been trying some homeopathic techniques to keep a cool and calm environment for the baby. But Alison and Emily both knew that once their son was on his way out there wasn't going to be anything cool and calm about it.

Just like with the twins Alison would scream and curse and take an angry swing at Emily in the delivery room. She'd grab Emily's hand so hard that she'd nearly break her fingers and her fingernails would draw Emily's blood because she was squeezing so hard. And then after it was all over, when they were looking at their son, they would both cry and smile at each other and Alison would take Emily's hand and kiss the bruises she'd accidentally given her. And Emily would lean forward and stroke their son's cheek and kiss Alison's sweaty forehead.

But none of that would happen if the little snot refused to come out. She'd talked nicely to him, begged him, threatened him with both adoption and eviction, but nothing worked. Her son was stubborn and didn't care about anything she said or did.

So now…she was at the lowest of the low…

"Come on. Come _on_." Alison groaned in frustration. "Please?" She reached down in between her legs and dangled a crisp ten dollar bill between her thighs.

Emily walked by their room carrying some of the twins' laundry, whistling to herself, only catching what was going on in her peripheral vision. Even in quick passing she saw that something was off. She stopped the second she got past the door frame and slowly backed up. She peered into their room and looked at her wife in confusion. She put the basket of laundry down.

Alison was sitting up against the bedframe with her knees up and her legs wide open. She was looking down and fanning a ten dollar bill between her thighs. Alison heard the noise at the door and she looked up to see a very confused brunette looking at her in surprise.

"Um?" Emily questioned with a tone that clearly said, _"explain…"_ as she pointed to the situation that was happening.

"I'm trying to bribe him," Alison said. Before Emily could burst into laughter she glared at her. "Shut up. He's two weeks late. Spicy food isn't working. Aria's stupid herbs aren't working. Walking around isn't working. Sex isn't working." Though it was certainly enjoyable. "I'm allowed to try things _my_ way."

"Ali, I don't think a ten spot is going to entice a baby out of the womb." Emily snorted in laughter as she walked towards her.

"You don't know. Maybe he likes money."

"He's _your_ child. He _definitely_ likes money." Emily nodded with a smile. "But for one thing, you're totally low-balling him. And he's smart enough to know it. And for another, I don't think cash is what brings on labor." She paused and thought about something. "It's actually usually the other way around." She sat down against the edge of the bed.

Alison felt a kick directly on her bladder and she felt just the tiniest bit of leakage in her underwear thanks to her loose bladder.

"You little shit." Alison glared down at her stomach.

He knew what he was doing.

"I am so done with this kid." Alison fell back on to her mound of pillows in frustration. "You try."

Emily shook her head with a laugh. She leaned forward, putting her palm against Alison's belly. She rubbed it as she moved closer to address their son.

 _Their son._ God, they'd been so happy when they'd first heard it was a boy. Their girls were moody as hell. So when they found out it was a boy they'd been overjoyed.

 _"I've never been so happy to see a penis in my life."_ Alison had smiled at the ultrasound photo.

 _"You know you owe me fifty bucks, right?"_ Emily had poked her in her side.

 _"I don't even care. Look at his little pickle. It's so cute."_

Now that she was two weeks overdue Alison didn't think anything about their little boy was cute anymore. She was ready to cut him out of her stomach so she didn't pee on herself every time she moved. She was pissed that he wasn't listening to her. She looked at Emily, hoping she'd be able to talk some sense into him.

"Hey, little dude. Your moms _really_ want to meet you, so how about this?" She kissed Alison's baby bulge and then looked up at her wife with a devious smirk on her face. "I'll be the cool mom here. Ten bucks? Psh. What is mommy thinking with that? I've got a hundred dollars for you if you come out right now."

Alison glared at her.

"You're mocking me?" She scowled. "I'm carrying your son and you're mocking me?"

"Of course not." Emily reached up and rubbed her arm with a smile. She looked at Alison's over-extended belly and addressed the baby again. "There's a plasma TV and an X-box in it for you if you come out today. Mama has today in the pool, so with all that money I can buy you whatever you want."

"You know what? You're carrying the next one." Alison frowned at her wife. "And I hope it's twins and you're a _month_ late!"

"Alison, calm down." Emily laughed.

" _You_ calm down." She felt like a five-year-old, but she didn't care. She was so _over_ this pregnancy thing. "You're not the one crying watching commercials about cell phones."

She hated her hormones so much. Yesterday she'd lost it watching a commercial about a soft drink. Stupid adorable animals selling carbonated beverages.

"I'm crazy and fat and hideous." Her voice trembled.

"Babe…" Emily stroked her cheek, trying not to laugh, because she knew it was just the hormones. "Do you really think that?"

"How can you even look at me? I'm a blimp." She pouted, moving her belly up and down.

"You're carrying our baby. Our son. You're the most beautiful thing in the world to me."

"You have to say that. You're my wife."

"Grace and Lily complimented you at breakfast this morning." Emily reminded her.

"You paid them to say nice things to me so I didn't fly into a rage and throw eggs and biscuits at their heads."

Emily couldn't argue. Her children really were easily bought. But they did love their moms and they had been doing a lot for them since Alison had been put on bed rest.

"We're at the finish line here, Ali." Emily promised.

"If you give me one more speech about how we're almost there I am going to rip this headboard in half and hit you in the face with it." And more hormones were raging. "And as for _you_ , young man." She poked her stomach, like poking him was going to make him pay more attention. "You have overstayed your welcome at Motel Mommy. You have not paid your rent in nine and a half months. This is unacceptable! I am no longer your slumlord mama. This is your eviction notice." She put her hands against her stomach as she spoke to their unborn son. "Vacate the premises immediately or I'll make you vacate by force!"

"What, are you going to throw his umbilical cord and placenta out on the front lawn?" Emily asked in confusion.

"You have five minutes to gather all your things and _get out_." Alison continued growling at her belly.

Emily chuckled at the imagery of a little baby carrying a suitcase and walking out of the womb with a little top hat on his head.

"I don't hear packing." Alison poked herself again.

She felt movement, like he was turning over to get more comfortable. Then he was still again. Alison let out a frustrated groan.

"Hey, don't you ignore me!"

She felt like he was already some surly teenage boy pulling the covers over his head and pretending his mom didn't exist. Alison mumbled underneath her breath.

"Freeloader."

"Ali, I know bed-rest is making you a little cranky, but…"

"I am _not_ cranky!" Alison glared at her.

"Right." Emily nodded with a teasing smile. "Of course not." She ran her hand over Alison's stomach. "How about I heat up last night's dinner and bring it to you?"

Alison sighed. Food did sound good right now.

"I don't want leftovers." Alison decided.

"Well, what can I get you? A burger? A gallon of pickles? Maybe an entire gazelle, fresh from the savanna? I can just…grab a little weak one that will be easy for you to pick off. It'll fill you up and it might help that rage of yours, too." She smiled.

Alison smacked her, hard. But she had a hint of a smile on her face. Because Emily always knew what to say to bring her out of her moods.

"Okay, okay, I'll get you a bigger one. Just promise me you won't rip my arm off when I feed it to you."

Another smack.

"You're making fun of an angry hormonal pregnant woman right now." Alison glared. "You're never getting sex again."

"You'll change your mind in a few hours when those hormones kick into overdrive."

"No. I mean it. I'm becoming a nun. I'm abstaining." Alison folded her arms across her chest like a defiant five-year-old, resting them against her baby bump.

"Is that so?" Emily reached her hand under Alison's gown, slipping her fingers against her thighs.

Alison shuddered at her touch. God, she was always _so_ horny at this stage in her pregnancy. Seconds later she was leaning forward to try and capture Emily's lips. She moved one hand down on top of Emily's and pushed her long tan fingers closer to her core.

Emily pulled back with a chuckle.

"My point exactly." Emily grinned.

"Oh, it's like that? Huh? You're just going to tease me? Just rev the engine and leave it idling..."

"I was just making a point." Emily stroked her face. "We'll continue it tonight. I promise. But you really do need to eat something. I'll whip something up."

"I'd rather you just bring the whipped cream up and let me eat what I _really_ want." She looked at Emily's body.

"Good God, were you this handsy when you were pregnant with the twins?" Emily laughed.

"You started it." Alison shrugged.

"And I'll finish it." Emily promised. "But you're going to eat a proper dinner first." She leaned forward and placed a gentle peck on Alison's lips. Alison tried to pull her closer, but her stomach got in the way. She grumbled in frustration when Emily pulled away. "I've got to go. I've got to round up the girls. Lily is at the library and it closes in…" She looked at her watch. "Shit, ten minutes." She stood up, stopping to delicately rub Alison's exposed leg. "I've also got to make sure Grace does her math homework. Lately she's been rebelling against her school work. Something about not wanting to conform to society and not wanting to be another 'pawn' in 'the man's' construct. Lily threw a Political Science book at her head two nights ago when Grace called her a mindless drone who refused to join the revolution."

"We've really got to stop letting her watch films about rebellion and revolution. She's learning too much." Alison laughed.

"She's just mad she lost the bet about her brother to Lily." Emily shrugged.

"That was months ago."

"No one can hold a grudge longer than _your_ daughter."

"Oh, sure, blame the pregnant lady."

"Not for much longer. He'll be here soon." Emily touched Alison's stomach again. "I won't be gone long. Grace is here if you need anything. She knows how to get in touch with me."

"You're putting my fate and the fate of our unborn son into the hands of a barricade building tyrannical rebel?"

"She's been instructed not to start any wars without consulting me first." Emily nodded as she walked out.

Alison laid back against the bed. Her back was cramping and her bladder felt like it was going to burst. She waddled to the bathroom and then after she was done she went back to bed. Then she felt like she had to pee again.

" _Really_?" Alison growled down at her stomach. She sighed again and then reached over and grabbed the ten dollar bill. "Here, baby baby baby…" She called like she would a puppy.

Emily kept her promise that night, but even after they were done with their throes of passion…still no labor. Alison was starting to get pissed again. She rolled to her side to try and get comfortable, her anger starting to get the better of her. But then she felt Emily massaging her shoulders to try and soothe her aches and pains. Emily reached for a container of cocoa butter massage cream and spread it evenly along her fingers and then rubbed it against Alison's belly. Then she started working the knots out of Alison's shoulders and spine. Shortly afterwards Alison was asleep.

Sleeping never lasted very long for Alison after she'd hit the last trimester, but that night it was shorter than normal. She felt a familiar twisting pain in her back and abdomen. She felt her body contracting and seconds later she felt something wet pooling between her legs.

Her water breaking.

She quickly rolled over.

"Em…" Alison shook Emily's shoulder.

"Hmm?" Emily immediately reached for Alison's face. It was a subconscious action she'd done for years. It was her instinct to comfort her, even when she was half asleep.

"You're gonna be buying that plasma TV and X-Box after all." She felt another contraction and she groaned. She put her hand on her stomach. "He's coming."

"Guess that eviction notice worked after all." Emily sat up and turned on the light.

Alison laughed, but then her face twisted into a contorted ball of pain. Contractions were a _bitch_.

"Okay, hold on. Hold on…" Emily leaped out of the bed.

They already had a bag packed for the hospital. Emily had thought of everything and she was ready for this. Alison watched as Emily took control of the situation. And for a few swift moments she didn't feel the pain of her contractions. All she could see was the love she had for her wife. It was something that could get them through anything, even pregnancy hormones and an overdue lazy fetus, whom they were going to meet _very_ soon.


	7. Family: Part II

**A/N:** _If you want a recap of the birth and the twins meeting the baby (still getting used to this "out of order" thing) see Chapter 2: Family. Also, the baby's name is/was Sam in both universes...the one with the birth AND the one with the miscarriage.  
_

* * *

 **Prompt: Can you write a Drabble were the girls meet little Sam? And he's the only baby so Hanna's being all Hanna and Spencer is all "Hanna what let the child breathe?" I would love to see the dynamic.**

* * *

 **Family: Part II**

Alison watched her wife slowly pacing around the room with their newborn baby in her arms, quietly bouncing him and speaking soothing words to him to try and get him to settle for a nap.

It had been an insanely difficult labor and Alison was exhausted. But she didn't want to go to sleep, because she didn't want to miss a moment of her son's first day. Emily uttered something about his aunties coming to visit him and then she kissed his head. She was so in love with him.

She looked over at Alison.

"How are you feeling?" Emily asked.

"My stitches hurt." Alison admitted. She'd been ripped open quite a bit because of their son's breech birth. She'd lost some blood, but in the end she'd made it through it…because of her wife's encouragement and support.

"Can I get you anything?" Emily asked.

Alison smiled, her dimples puckering in the soft hospital light. She shook her head. Seeing Emily with their baby was all the pain relief she needed.

"I'm okay," Alison replied. She glanced at the clock. "Did I hear you say something about the girls coming to see him?"

"Spencer and Aria are on their way. Hanna has been in the waiting room for the last thirty minutes cussing at them for taking too long."

Alison pictured Hanna impatiently pacing around the hallway waiting room while tapping her foot and sending increasingly aggressive messages to Spencer and Aria asking them if they were riding to the hospital on the back of a turtle.

"It's a good thing you waited until after to call her. She would have bullied her way into the delivery room and pulled him out with her bare hands."

Their friend Hanna had been looking forward to the birth of their son almost _more_ than Alison and Emily had. She loved babies. She'd stayed the night at the hospital when Alison's and Emily's twins were born.

"I swear if Caleb doesn't put a baby in her soon she's going to steal one of ours." Alison added.

"I'd be willing to part with Grace right now. She snuck into the morgue and jumped out of a body bag and almost gave an intern a heart attack." Emily had an annoyed look on her face. "Got to give her points for creativity though."

"Where is she now?"

"Probably playing darts with syringes somewhere." She looked down when the baby squeaked in her arms. "Your big sister is a devil." She warned him.

Her phone bleated from the table. Emily walked over and looked down at it.

"Aria and Spencer are here. They're on their way up."

"God, why does childbirth produce such adorable little things that people want to visit? The mothers always look like hell. I probably look like a sweat-sock that's been through the wash cycle one too many times." She tried to fix her hair.

"You look beautiful, Alison." Emily assured her, moving one of her arms out from under their son, balancing him in her other arm as she put her palm on Alison's face and brushed her thumb against her cheek. "Besides, all the attention is going to be on him."

As it should be. Alison couldn't argue with that. And Emily was right. The second their friends arrived they were all over the baby. Hanna practically swooped him out of Emily's arms.

"Jeeze, Han. He's a baby, not a football." Aria laughed.

"I couldn't help myself." She looked down at him and smiled, her voice soft and quiet as she spoke about him, "He just makes me wanna hug him and kiss him and squeeze him." She lifted him up. His eyes widened in surprise, like he was alarmed by her. But he didn't cry. She took a whiff of his head. "He smells so good. He's got that fresh baby smell."

"We should contact the dealership about that. We clearly specified we wanted the Royal Pine scent." Emily quipped.

Alison laughed and the girls turned their attention to her.

"How are you doing, Ali?" Spencer asked.

"I'm sore. Pretty much everything below my bellybutton hurts," she said, glancing down. "I'm pretty sure I look like Frankenstein's monster down there, but Emily won't hold a mirror up to it and let me see."

Because Emily knew she'd freak out if she saw the swelling and the stitches.

"Aw, did you break your mommy's vagina?" Hanna cooed at him.

"Hanna!" Spencer frowned in disapproval.

"He'll be hearing about it for the rest of his life, I'm sure." Aria laughed, reaching down to rub his cheek.

"Damn straight he will." Alison said. "I'm probably going to pee when I sneeze because of him."

"But look at that sweet little face." Aria very lightly pinched his cheek. "You can't look at that sweet little face and be mad at him."

"I know, right?" Hanna smiled. "He's so adorable." Hanna snuggled him. "I'm just going to take him. You guys can cook up another one, right?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, I'm just an incubator up for hire." Alison replied with a sarcastic laugh.

"Actually, with the additional mouth to feed we could use the extra income." Emily teased.

"Nope. Next one is your turn. My cooch is officially closed for business." Alison shook her head.

"God, this poor little boy is so doomed in this estrogen-fest." Spencer put her hand on his blanket. She felt him kick his foot. "I know." Spencer nodded and spoke to him like she understood what he was saying. "I'm so sorry about all of these crazy women. I'll try and get your Uncle Toby to bro out with you when you need to escape the crazy ladies."

"Oh, he loves us." Hanna scoffed. "Don't you, little guy?" She puckered her lips out at him.

Emily and Alison watched them in amusement. This was better than any TV show they'd ever watched. Sometimes they forgot how hilarious their friends were.

He started squirming in Hanna's arms. His face started to redden. A quiet squeak turned into a broken cry.

"I believe he's tiring of your antics." Spencer looked over Hanna's shoulder at him.

"Nonsense. He's just warming up his vocal chords so he's ready for Karaoke night with Auntie Hanna and Uncle Caleb. We'll do matching outfits and everything."

"I am taking the child away from you now." Spencer threatened.

"You'll have to catch us first." Hanna smiled playfully. She very quickly, but also very carefully backed out of the room.

"Hey, get back here! It's my turn to snuggle him." Aria was quick to follow.

"I'll save him." Spencer shook her head with a sigh as she followed Aria out of the room.

"I think our son was just kidnapped." Emily's lips turned upwards into an amused smirk. "Should we alert the authorities?"

"Nah. A few days with Hanna and he'll walk out on his own."

" _Days_?" Emily laughed. "Try _hours_."

Seconds later they saw Hanna shuffle by their door, still holding their swaddled baby boy in her arms. She was laughing as Spencer and Aria playfully chased after her.

"Grown ass women acting like children with a toy." Emily snorted out a laugh.

"They are going to get banned from the hospital." Alison shook her head with a chuckle.

"Just try and stop them from getting in. Hanna would probably scale the side of the building," Emily said.

"And Spencer and Aria would be right behind her the whole time bitching at her." Alison nodded.

"Wild horses couldn't keep them away." Emily smiled. She watched them go by the doorway again. "God, they are worse than Grace and Lily. I should probably go get him before Hanna decides to re-enact the entire plot of _The Lion King_ with him."

"Nah, let them tire themselves out. That way, it's three less babies we have to take care of later on tonight." Alison suggested.

Eventually the girls stopped fooling around and took turns holding their new little nephew, passing him around and marveling at him in wonderment. Emily and Alison looked at their friends, knowing how lucky they were to have such a close group of family. Their son would never have a shortage of love. He was surrounded by family. And they couldn't have asked for anything more.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Quick update on the new story. I had planned to post tonight, however fanfic is being a royal bitch with the 503 errors that they have supposedly "fixed", so I'm not doing shit with it until this site gets their act together, cuz I don't entirely trust something won't go wrong, as it already did in editing.  
_


	8. Playtime

**A/N:** _This one got long, because when you're dealing with such a large cast of characters it gets…busy, and it's not easy to toggle._

* * *

 **Prompt:** **I think it would be interesting to see the rest of the girls with the arrival of the baby boy! Because assuming you use the twins being twelve I would guess it's been a while since the liars had a baby to dote on! Hanna being all baby feverish! And I would love to see Lily and Grace introducing their baby brother to the rest of the liars kids and being protective and excited! Like sort of a barbecue to celebrate the newest arrival! Thanks in advance.**

* * *

 _ **Playtime**_

The weather was perfect. The clouds were heavy and thick, so the sun wasn't _too_ intense. The wind was trickling lightly through the air. Hanna and Caleb had picked out the pavilion closest to the playground so the kids wouldn't get too bored while the grown-ups partied.

The kids were, of course, circling the cake that said "Happy Birthday Hanna!" on it, waiting for the glorious moment they got to dig into the pure sugar. Hanna's little girl swiped her finger through some icing and then ran away giggling. The kids were having a blast. And the adults were, too.

Emily climbed out of the driver's seat and opened the back to get the stroller out. Her twins, who had just turned thirteen both leaned forward to look at their baby brother in his car seat. This was his first big outing and the girls wanted to make sure it was a good one.

"Do we have enough diapers?" Lily asked her mom, who was unbuckling her belt in the front seat.

"Yes, Lily." Alison mumbled, humoring her daughter.

"What about sunscreen? I heard that babies are really sensitive to the sun." Grace added.

"He's got it on." Alison had basically bathed her son in sunblock right before they left the house.

"Do we have his binky? He'll get really fussy without his binky," Lily said.

Alison paused and frowned. Crap. _Had_ she remembered his binky? Was it in his diaper bag? She glanced in the rearview mirror at her daughters.

"Girls, would you stop backseat parenting me?" Alison nagged. "Help your mother get the stuff out of the back."

"She totally forgot the binky." Lily scoffed with a laugh as she climbed out of the car.

"I heard that!" Alison exclaimed.

"I got your back, Mom." Grace leaned forward and handed her the extra pacifier she'd brought. "I threw his favorite blanket in the diaper bag, too."

Alison reached back and grabbed the diaper bag while mumbling to herself about what a terrible mother she was. She climbed out of the car and Emily met her to get their son out.

"Don't forget his hat." Lily walked by them holding a large wrapped box.

"You expect her to make sure he's properly dressed? She put two totally different color socks on him this morning. And his shirt is on backwards." Grace followed her sister.

"You're both grounded until you're forty!" Alison called out after them.

"Babe, if they're still living with us when they're forty, we've done something terribly wrong." Emily laughed and reached inside the car. "What is up with you today?"

"Why do our daughters know more about our son than we do?" Alison asked grumpily.

"Because they haven't been awake for the past three weeks straight with him. They have the luxury of being well-rested."

Sam squeaked from his car seat and Emily leaned down and kissed his head.

"Not that we don't love every minute with you, buddy." Emily assured him as she reached in to unhook the car seat. The car seat doubled as part of the stroller, so it was convenient for them to just leave him there. It was especially important if he was asleep. They NEVER wanted to wake him when he was sleeping.

But he was wide awake right now, his curious eyes drifting around the park. Emily pulled up the sun visor on the stroller so he wouldn't be exposed to too much sunlight.

They walked over towards where all of their friends and their children had gathered. The kids were running around in various areas of the park while the adults mingled with one another. As they got closer they saw Lily and Grace talking to Aria and Ezra's six-year-old son. He saw them coming and he waved.

"Hi, Finn." Emily smiled sweetly at him.

He wrapped his arms around Aria and looked up at the adults with a shy smile. He was by far the most introverted of all the kids. He was still coming out of his shell. He'd always been quiet. Aria and Ezra had adopted him when he was two. He'd come from a broken home and was skittish. But after a month with Aria and Ezra he'd started to smile and loosen up and he'd been doing well ever since. He loved them both, but was particularly attached to Aria. He was a mama's boy.

"Hey, buddy, you want to meet your new cousin Sam?" Ezra leaned down until he was eye level with his son.

Finn nodded. He looked over the edge of the stroller curiously.

"It's okay. He won't bite." Grace poked the youngster playfully. "I might though."

Finn giggled and then leaned in closer. Sam looked up at him and Finn smiled.

"Hi, Sam." Finn reached into the stroller cautiously. He laid his index finger across his hand. Sam immediately latched on to his finger and Finn looked up at Aria and Ezra in excitement. "He likes me!" He looked at the baby and then back at his parents and decidedly said, "I want a baby brother. I'm gonna ask Santa for one."

"Uh…buddy, Santa doesn't exactly deliver babies." Aria laughed nervously.

"Then where do they come from?"

"Hey, let's go get a cupcake." Ezra suggested.

"Oh, yeah!" And his mind was suddenly on sugar instead of babies. But he hadn't forgotten about the infant beside him. "It was nice to meet you, Sam. I can't wait until you're older so we can play together."

He was such a sweet little boy. So curious about the world, but he watched from the sidelines for the most part. But Sam's arrival had definitely piqued his curisoty. Alison and Emily snickered as Ezra tried to keep his son occupied and _not_ asking about where babies came from.

They heard an excited cry behind them. They turned around and saw several of their friends walking towards them.

"You brought me a baby for my birthday!" Hanna squealed walking up next to them, her husband Caleb beside her. "This even beats the vintage _Vuitton_ dinette set Mona and Mike shipped over from France earlier this week. All other gifts can go home. This one wins."

"Hey, Han." Emily smiled. "Happy birthday."

Spencer and her husband Toby were right behind Hanna and Caleb.

"Keeping her out of the cake has been exhausting." Spencer joked.

"I told you we should have rented a baby to keep her distracted." Toby nudged Spencer with his elbow.

"Oh my God, he's doubled in size." Hanna leaned over and picked Sam up.

"You saw him two days ago." Emily teased.

"Oh, he's so big." She snuggled him. "What are they feeding you?"

Sam's face scrunched up, but he didn't cry. He'd gotten very used to his Aunt Hanna being all over him.

"You might want to let him breathe. Just a suggestion," Spencer said with a laugh.

"Are you kidding? He's not going to stay this little and let me do this forever. I'll take the time while I've got it." She looked at her husband. "Cami was crawling away from me the second she was mobile. I barely even see the girl anymore unless she wants money."

As if on cue, her nine-year-old daughter came jogging over to her.

"Mom!"

"Not now, Cami. Mommy is busy contemplating replacing you with a younger model."

"But I want some money for the vending machine." Cami slowed her pace, dragging herself the rest of the way.

"We literally have a table full of food." Caleb laughed at his daughter. Leave it to their child to have a feast in front of her and want 3-year-old stale chips from a vending machine.

When Cami got closer she saw the baby in Hanna's arms. She'd heard all about Sam, but she hadn't met him yet. She pushed closer to her mom.

"Aww, he's adorable." She cooed. She looked up at her mom. "Can I hold him?"

Hanna looked at Alison and Emily for permission and they both nodded. Grace and Lily both glanced at one another nervously.

"Maybe she should sit down?" Lily suggested.

"I know how to hold a baby." Cami scoffed. "I held Finn when he was little."

"And you dropped him." Grace gave her a hard time.

"I was five." She rolled her eyes. "And Finn is fine."

She motioned to Finn playing with a small model airplane he'd built with his dad. Ezra picked him up and made engine noises and Finn giggled and threw his arms out like he was a plane. Aria snapped a picture of the two of them.

"Choo choo!" Finn exclaimed loudly.

"You're a plane, not a train, buddy." Aria reminded him.

They were still working with him on vocabulary. He'd been a little behind in his development when he was a toddler because of the care he was lacking at home. But he was rapidly catching up to a higher percentile now that Aria and Ezra were in the picture. He was a very intelligent little boy.

"Well, he's mostly fine." Cami laughed nervously.

"It couldn't hurt for you to sit down." Caleb agreed with the twins. "This is a little different than sitting for a picture with a toddler in your lap."

Cami did what she was told. She sat down and Hanna gently put the infant in her arms. The young girl gasped in delight when she saw Sam looking up at her. He smacked his lips a few times and squirmed a little bit. His forehead crinkled and something that looked like a smirk washed across his face.

"He's smiling." Cami's face lit up in excitement.

"Look at that. Look how cute she is with him. God, I miss having a baby around." Hanna leaned in to hug Caleb.

"You just _think_ you miss it." Caleb reached out and touched the baby's cheek, unable to ignore his spell-bounding captivity. "But remember all those sleepless nights we had with Cami when she was his age?"

"What I remember is rocking her to sleep and singing to her until she settled and then falling asleep with her in my arms."

"Funny. I seem to remember you telling me you wanted to neuter me." He was putting it mildly. She'd been much more graphic.

"Oh, that was just the hormones and lack of sleep talking." Hanna shook her head with a laugh.

Caleb chuckled and faced Emily and Alison, remembering exactly how much having an infant could rattle marital nerves.

"How are things going?" he asked.

"Oh, neither of us has slept in almost a month, all of our clothes are covered in substances neither one of us wants to identify, there are dozens of half-filled coffee cups scattered all throughout the house, we don't know where Lily and Grace are half the time, and we plot each other's deaths every night in the middle of the night when he cries," Emily said with a smile, leaning in to kiss Alison just to let her know she was teasing…mostly.

"Sounds about right." Caleb laughed.

Sam started whimpering in Cami's arms and she looked down and panicked.

"Oh no, am I doing something wrong? What does he need?"

"He just needs his favorite sister." Grace edged her way down next to Cami and took Sam from her.

His cries increased in volume. Grace bounced him to try and settle him down.

"Here, let me try." Lily followed Grace around.

Grace carefully passed her baby brother over to her sister and he almost immediately stopped crying.

"Hey, you were right." Cami laughed. "He just needed his _favorite_ sister."

"Hey, _I_ did most of the calming. It's like…opening a pickle jar. You work and work at it and can't get it and then the next person comes along and it's easy for them because you did all the hard labor."

"She just called you a pickle, peanut." Lily bounced Sam.

Sam cooed.

"I do all the hard work and you take all the credit. Unbelievable." Grace scoffed.

"You just described being a parent." Spencer tousled Grace's hair. "It's not an easy job…"

"Mom!" A whiny voice echoed across the air. Everyone turned around and saw Spencer's eight-year-old daughter Violet running towards them in tears, blubbering about something her sister had done. "Bailey wouldn't let me jump off the merry-go-round!"

"Girls, play nice…" Toby tried to interject, but before he could finish his other daughter was already jumping in to defend herself.

"Because it was going too fast. She would have busted her head open." Ten-year-old Bailey replied. She stared at her little sister. "Do you _want_ to die on the playground? Because that's how you die on the playground."

"Like I was saying…" Spencer said under her breath. "Parenting." She shook her head.

"She thinks I'm a baby." Violet sulked.

"You're not a baby, Vi, _that's_ a baby." Bailey saw Grace and Lily doting on their brother.

"Oh!" Violet exclaimed, her mouth falling into an 'o' as Lily turned towards them.

"Hey, Bailey. Hey, Violet." Lily picked Sam's arm up and made him wave at the girls.

Their fight was immediately forgotten the second they saw Sam. They quickly crowded around him.

The curious crowd continued to grow when Jason and his brood got there twenty minutes later. They had just gotten Sam settled back into his stroller when two excited voices shrieked from across the playground.

"Aunt Ali! Aunt Emily!"

Alison and Emily glanced at the two sandy-haired blue-eyed boys racing towards them. Jason's boys Leo and Maddox were five and six. They both looked exactly like Alison's brother. Of course, Jason's wife Danielle was also blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

"Hey, sis." Jason smiled.

"Alright, who invited _this_ joker?" Alison teased.

"I was obligated to bring him." Danielle smiled. "Something about 'for better or worse'."

Jason grabbed her around her waist and tickled her and she laughed and playfully popped him.

"Hey, Dani." Emily waved.

"Hey, Em."

"You brought Sam?" Maddox danced around on his feet in excitement.

"Of course they did! You can't leave a baby home alone, duh." Leo rolled his eyes at his older brother.

Maddox leaned over the stroller and stuck his hands inside without hesitation.

"Hi, Sammy. Remember me? I visited you in the hospital. We brought you a teddy bear." He pat his arm like he was a puppy.

"Gentle, Maddox." Grace warned him.

Sometimes the excitement got the better of her cousins. Jason's boys were very outgoing, and they _loved_ their new baby cousin. When Maddox and Leo had visited Sam in the hospital they had started tugging on his arms and fighting over him like he was a toy.

"I wanna hold him," Maddox said enthusiastically.

"Me first!" Leo pushed his brother.

"Boys, why don't you go play?" Jason suggested. The baby was durable, thankfully, but Jason knew that his boys would wear him out before everyone had their chance to spend some time with him.

"Finn, you wanna come?" Leo turned to Aria's little boy.

"Okay." Finn smiled.

"Girls, why don't you go with them? Keep them out of trouble?" Toby faced his daughters and the rest of the kids.

The kids wandered off to play for a while and the adults all took their time loving on Sam. After about thirty minutes the kids all came storming back to get drinks and gather around the baby again. They were fascinated by him. Sam's mouth fell open as he looked around at all the new faces surrounding him. They took turns holding him, cooing the whole time.

Alison and Emily barely saw their son all afternoon. Neither of them would admit it, but they appreciated the break. They found a shaded spot on a bench overlooking the pavilion and watched as their family doted on the boy.

"We should have charged a fee to let people hold him. We could have all three of their college tuitions paid." Emily smiled.

"Hanna would probably pay us good money for him." Alison nodded in agreement.

"You'd miss him too much." Emily laughed. "You freaked out when we went to lunch without him the first time."

"That was when I was still young and stupid and not sleep deprived." Alison yawned.

They heard a fit of laughter from the kids. It made Emily and Alison both smile. Alison reached out and took Emily's hand, their fingers lacing together naturally. Alison laid her head against Emily's shoulder and a content sigh came out of her mouth. They both hummed in delight.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Alison asked.

"Mmmhmm, he's going to sleep tonight." Emily breathed a sigh of relief.

They both closed their eyes and bathed in the sunlight, thoughts of a full night's rest dancing through their minds. Fortunately, they didn't have to wait until that night to catch up on their rest. Minutes later they were both asleep.


	9. Words

**A/N:** _My fellow tumblr people may recognize this prompt I wrote some time ago, however there has been almost an additional 2k words written, expanding it and giving you a LITTLE more DiLaurentis-Fields fam. Enjoy. This one is PG for…words, and shenanigans. And FYI, I haven't forgotten about the prompts I've been given. I'm just juggling a lot right now. And I suck at juggling._

* * *

 **Prompt: Hey! I was wondering if you could write a prompt were Sam is about to talk and Emily, Alison, Lily, and Grace are fighting about which is going to be his first word and they all make bets or something and then his first word is something silly?**

* * *

 _ **Words**_

Dinner time at the DiLaurentis-Fields house was often a chaotic scene. Two teenagers snarking at one another while a handsy baby threw everything he could get his grubby little fingers on, including food. The twins thought it was hilarious, so they often encouraged him by making a game out of it with their own food.

Emily and Alison had made an Olympic Sport out of catching dinner rolls and flying chicken breasts mid-air. It was all fun and games until someone got slapped in the eye with a steaming hot piece of enchilada. They always yelled at the girls to knock it off, but their little brother's giggles only encouraged them to entertain him at dinner.

Sam's assaults weren't any easier on them. The youngest member of their family didn't eat a lot of solid food yet, but Emily and Alison had ventured into letting him try little things here and there. Emily had been slapped once by a large linguine noodle that Sam was using as a whip. Alison had been the victim of a drive-by lemon squeezing when Sam tried the citrus for the first time. And they had both ended up with smashed peas in their hair and green beans in their cleavage when they tried to introduce him to vegetables.

Trying to get their kids to eat healthy was difficult, especially for Grace and Sam. Lily didn't mind eating her greens. Grace, on the other hand, slid her broccoli under the table and gave it to the dog.

Grace glanced around the table and saw that her mothers were both occupied trying to keep Sam from grabbing a huge pile of spaghetti and marinara from the bowl near his high chair. Lily was looking at her phone. She stabbed a large piece of broccoli with her fork and slipped it to her trusty vegetable eater, their Pit-Bull, Labrador Retriever mix, Buster, who would ingest _anything_. He was their vacuum cleaner. He quickly gobbled up the broccoli.

"Grace, I saw that." Emily pointed her fork accusingly at her daughter with one hand while wiping Sam's messy fingers off with a napkin with her other hand. "You're not leaving this table until you eat something green."

"But that's not fair. There are tomatoes in the spaghetti sauce. That counts!"

"Tomatoes are a fruit." Lily gave her a smarmy look from across the table.

"I should have eaten you in the womb." Grace narrowed her eyes at her sister and threw the last bite of her bread at her face.

Alison caught it mid-air and then put it down.

"Grace, greens, now." Alison ordered.

"Fine." She frowned, relenting to the terror of having something _green_.

She glanced at the counter, looking for the last of the broccoli. What she found was something better. She reached back behind her chair where they had the candy dish. She grabbed a handful of jellybeans. Two of them were green. She waited until both of her mothers were watching and then grinned smugly at them.

"You didn't say what _kind_ of green food I had to eat." She tossed the jellybeans into her mouth.

Sam started bouncing in his high chair, because he saw Grace eating something new and he wanted it. He started whimpering.

"Processed sugar does _not_ count as a vegetable, child." Emily rolled her eyes. She scooped up two pieces of broccoli and put them on Grace's plate.

Lily locked her eyes on Grace's eyes and grinned as she picked up her plate.

"I'd _love_ some more broccoli, Mom."

Grace stared back at her with a heated gaze that clearly stated, _"You little shit."_

"Suck up." She muttered under her breath.

Sam babbled throughout the rest of dinner like he always did. It wasn't until Grace had choked down the last of her vegetables and they were starting to get cleaned up that he called for his mothers' and sisters' attention.

Emily and Alison were getting ready to clear the table and Grace and Lily were getting ready to run off and disappear into their rooms when Sam loudly shouted,

"BUH!"

He'd said it with a clear precision and a dialect they'd never heard before, like he was trying to form a word. It was exciting. He'd made noises and chattered to himself for a while now. But mostly he'd just babbled a bunch of baby nonsense. This time he was trying to actually address them and tell them what he wanted.

"What is it, Sammy?" Emily sat down next to his high chair.

He reached his sticky hand out and pat Emily's wrist, leaving a lump of mashed potatoes on her skin. Then he pointed at Alison and opened his mouth like he was getting ready to say something.

"Oh, I think he's going to do it!" Lily exclaimed. They waited for the inevitable "mama" to come out of his mouth.

But instead he stared at Alison and smacked his lips together.

"Can you say 'mama'?" Alison asked.

"Say 'French Fry'." Grace encouraged him.

"Ohhh, or how about 'onomatopoeia'." Lily rubbed his toes.

"That's not a real word." Grace scoffed. "You just made that up."

"Just because _you_ don't know it doesn't mean it's not a real word."

"Use it in a sentence." Grace challenged.

"Grace's intellectual skills are so low that she doesn't know what the word onomatopoeia means."

Grace made a face at her and flicked her in the arm. Lily stuck her tongue out at her.

"How is it that a baby is more mature than two teenagers?" Emily chuckled.

"You're a real riot, mom." Grace rolled her eyes. "You should try your hand at stand-up comedy." Her tone was laced with sarcasm.

"I'm already living in a nutball sitcom." Emily pushed back.

"Buh…"

"What is it, buddy?" Lily asked.

He threw his hand out and started wiggling his finger frantically.

"Buh…"

"Buster?" Lily asked, looking at their rescue dog. He was patiently waiting for some food to fall off of the table and on to the floor, or for Grace to slip him more scraps under the table.

"Buh." Sam shook his head and furrowed his little eyebrows and puffed his cheeks out.

"Bunny?" Grace walked over and picked up a little stuffed bunny out of his pack-n-play.

She handed the bunny to him, but he threw it across the room and started smacking his palms against the tray of his high chair.

"Buh!" He shouted, his cheeks starting to get red in frustration. He was still pointing at Alison furiously.

"Think he's trying to call me a bitch?" Alison questioned curiously. He'd probably heard plenty of people say that to her.

"Oh, swear jar!" Grace pointed at her mother enthusiastically.

She motioned to a jar across the room filled with coins and a few crumpled bills. Ones, fives, and a ten from when Alison had lost her shit in traffic a few weeks ago. Grace had been grinning in the backseat keeping count of the 'fucks' and the 'dickheads' she was slinging that day. Grace had ticked off each and every word like a warped version of car bingo.

Alison hadn't said a word when they'd gotten home. She'd just walked over to the jar and pulled out a few ones from her purse and shoved them angrily into the jar. Grace had stood behind her with her word count smiling at her,

 _"Not even close, mom. Pay up."_

So Alison had stuck the ten in there, too.

There was only one other ten in the jar from when Emily had lost track of Sam and had to contend with a kitchen fire in the same day. It had all happened within minutes. She'd put Sam down on his blanket with some of his toys and ran to grab the laundry. By the time she got back, Sam was nowhere in sight and Grace was screeching from the kitchen.

Emily had run in and found the microwave on fire. Grace had been trying to reheat some mac and cheese…covering it with aluminum foil. Lily had been screaming at her that you couldn't put aluminum foil in the microwave to which Grace had very snottily replied,

 _"I know that NOW!"_

A lot of cuss words had come out of Emily's mouth that day, because her son had crawled off to God knows where and the house was on fire. Lily had run off to find the baby, who she found sitting behind the steps playing with sock he'd found while Grace and Emily battled the fire. No one was hurt, but the swear jar got a hefty deposit that day.

The swear jar had been Emily's idea. They were trying to teach the girls that every word they said mattered, and also keep their son from stringing a bunch of cuss words together before he was one. It worked sometimes. Alison hated it with a vengeance, because of the two of them she was the one who had the worst temper. And the worse the word was, the higher the fine.

" _Bitch_ doesn't count." Alison frowned. "It is an anatomical word for an intact female dog. It's a medical term and it's in the dictionary." Alison played it off.

"Yeah, but you didn't use it in the right context. I mean, 'fuck' is in the dictionary, too." Grace smarted back.

"Grace Estella!" Alison glared angrily at her.

Grace just smirked back with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

"She's right." Lily shrugged. "It means 'to fornicate'…"

"We _know_ what it means, Lily." Alison interrupted her.

She glanced at Emily for back up, but her wife was doubled over in hysterics laughing at their smart-mouthed little brats.

"I'm just saying, are we changing what constitutes the rules of a bad word by whether or not it's in the dictionary?" Lily asked. "I mean 'hell' and 'ass' are in the bible."

"So is 'damn'." Grace added.

"Who the hell gave you a bible?" Alison stared at Lily and Grace in surprise.

"Is 'shit' in the dictionary?" Grace faced her sister.

"Okay, that's enough. Knock it off. We have impressionable minds in the room." Emily tried to keep it together. She snorted through her laughter.

" _Impressionable minds_?" Lily replied with a sarcastic laugh. "I _know_ you're not talking about me and Grace. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we're _you're_ kids. We were always tainted."

Grace opened her mouth to say something, but Alison glared at her.

"Grace, I swear to God if you laugh at that you are going to be grounded for a week. You and Lily may be lost causes, but there is still hope for your little brother and I'll be damned if he is going to end up a little deviant, too."

Two was enough for her. She couldn't handle three hellions. She just couldn't. She looked at Emily, who still had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. The brunette had a perplexed look on her face, a cheeky expression.

"What?" Alison asked.

"'Dam as in like…a beaver dam, or…damnation?"

"I hate every single one of you." Alison walked over to her purse. She pulled a ten out and shoved it in the jar and then walked back over to her family. "There, now I can say as many _damn_ swear words as I want. I've pre-paid. And I don't see anyone else ponying up, so you can all just shut it."

"Buh…" Sam interrupted their squabble. He was still babbling to himself. His eyes narrowed as if he was trying to comprehend all the words he'd just heard.

He fidgeted around in his chair and frowned, his breaths getting harsher, like he was going to start screaming at any minute.

"BUH!"

"Maybe he's trying to say 'butt'." Grace snickered.

"It's like you _want_ him to say a cuss word." Lily looked at her sister.

"It really wouldn't surprise me if his first word was a swear word. Grace was running around the house screaming 'shitballs' when she was one." Emily shrugged.

"That's awesome." Grace snorted.

"Your grandmother didn't think so. She almost had a coronary." Emily shook her head with a laugh.

"What was my first cuss word?" Lily asked curiously.

"You said 'fuck' when you fell and hit your head on the fireplace when you were thirteen months old. You cried 'ow' and then dropped the 'f' bomb on us. We couldn't punish you because you used it in the correct context." Alison snickered.

"Maybe he's trying to say 'bastard'." Grace looked at her little brother. "I mean, his big sisters _are_ technically bastards…"

"Grace, knock it off. You're being a bad influence." Lily shoved her.

"Buuuuh." Sam said again, drawing it out. The look on his face told them he was getting exhausted trying to communicate with them. He was minutes away from a meltdown.

"Bath?" Lily asked. He did love bathtime. His sisters made it fun for him. Grace blew bubbles and Lily sang to him.

Sam grunted out a bunch of incomprehensible noises that basically sounded like, "you aren't listening to me!" cries.

"Bean?" Grace continued to guess, pointing to the green beans she'd refused to eat, still untouched on her plate.

"Yes, Grace. The name of a bland vegetable is going to be our brother's first word."

"Hey, it _is_ the musical fruit." Grace grinned.

"Are you _five_?" Lily frowned.

"Buh?" Sam posed it as a question this time, like changing the inflection was going to suddenly make them fluent in 'baby'.

"Bottle? You want a ba-ba?" Lily asked.

A string of frustrated whines and cries came out of Sam's mouth. He started huffing.

"Oh, it's okay, Sammy." Lily reached out and rubbed his chunky little thighs. "Don't be upset."

"Boooo." He tried again.

"Boo? Are you a ghost, little man?" Grace questioned.

Sam was still staring at his moms. He kept looking back at Alison like she should understand what he wanted.

"Beats your first word." Lily smirked at Grace.

"I happen to think that 'chicken nugget' is a perfectly acceptable first word. Much better than your 'bird'."

"Actually, technically your first word was 'no', Grace." Alison corrected her. She added with a mumble, "You haven't stopped saying it since."

"Booooooo!" Sam cried again.

He looked at Emily desperately like "help me here, mom!" and then looked at his sisters and mothers like "what is wrong with you people?" He reached out to Alison, stretching his arms, begging to be picked up. When she leaned forward to take him out of the high chair he pat his little palms against her breasts.

"Boooob."

"Did he just…" Alison glanced down in confusion.

"He did." Emily burst into laughter. Lily and Grace snorted.

"Are kidding me?" Alison laughed.

"So, you're a boob man." Emily squeezed his cheek and laughed.

"Must have gotten that from you," Alison muttered under her breath, hoping the girls hadn't heard it.

They had.

"Gross."

"Ew."

"Overshare." Lily frowned.

"Boob," Sam said again, whining. He clawed at her shirt.

"I think he's telling me it's time to nurse." Alison glanced down at her chest and then looked at her son.

"This is so epic. I'm going to write this in his baby book right now." Grace stood up and started walking away from the table.

"Boob has two o's." Lily followed her.

"I know how to spell, Lily." Grace rolled her eyes.

"Spell onomatopoeia."

"Spell 'Bite Me'."

"Hey, not so fast, girls!" Alison called after them.

Grace and Lily stopped in their tracks and turned around to face her. She motioned towards the swear jar.

"There's still the little matter of you _both_ owing some money to the swear jar. I expect your payments by the end of the night."

"But mom…"

"Nope. Don't want to hear it. We all play by the rules here." Alison cut Grace off.

"We're really making them work for that trip to Disneyworld." Emily laughed.

"We're going to Disneyworld?" Lily perked up. "And Epcot?"

"That." Alison nodded. "Or mommies are getting a new car and taking a trip to Paris and leaving your little heathen asses with your grandmother."

"Swear j…"

"Already prepaid, remember?" Alison smirked at Grace.

Both of them dragged their feet and muttered in 'angry teenage' under their breath. It was a language that both of their mothers were well-versed in.

"God. My mother always said if I had a daughter that she'd be ten times worse than I was. And we have _two_ of them." Alison uttered.

"Oh, come on. They're not _that_ bad in comparison." Emily picked Sam up out of his high chair.

"Yeah, I guess…" Alison paused in thought and a realization hit her, "…hey! Was that a shot at me?"

Emily chuckled.

"Go ahead and take care of the boob-monster. I'll clean up here." Emily passed their son over to her waiting arms.

"Boob." Sam smiled, patting her chest.

"Really, Sam?" Alison sighed. "I thought you were going to be better than your sisters."

"Boob," he said again.

"I heard you the first twenty times."

Alison walked out of the kitchen with Sam in her arms. She got him changed and then sat down in the rocking chair in his nursery. He eagerly latched on to her breast. She watched him nurse.

All of her babies had been so different when they nursed. Lily usually kept her hands against her chest, but didn't move or squirm much. Grace would latch on, then get distracted by something and then it would take her forever to latch on again. And she bit. She was terrible about biting.

With Sam, he always kneaded her skin, so they made sure to keep his nails short. When she felt his little fingers slowing down and sliding away from her body she knew he was almost asleep. His suckling slowed down.

It was only when she slowed the rocking chair that she realized Emily was in the doorway watching. She had a soft smile on her face.

"I love seeing you with him like this." Emily admitted. She quietly crept into the room. She loved their family.

Alison smiled.

"Can you take him so I can get situated?" Alison questioned.

Emily reached down and they carefully moved him from Alison's arms into Emily's. They had become experts at "pass the baby" without waking him. Alison rolled her shoulder and grabbed a wipe to clean up a little of Sam's spit up while Emily carried him to his crib. She kissed him on the forehead and then gently laid him down. His mouth was still twitching like he was still sucking on Alison's breast. Alison walked over and looked down at him.

"He's precious when he's asleep." Alison stood on her tip toes and leaned her chin against Emily's shoulder.

"He really is."

Sam squirmed a little and moved his head like he was getting ready to cry.

"Crap, don't wake up. Don't wake up." Alison whispered under her breath, ready to duck down like she was avoiding a firefight in Vietnam.

Getting him down wasn't always easy. He rolled his head back and let out a content sigh instead of a loud wail. His mothers breathed a sigh of relief.

They tiptoed out of his room.

"So, _boob_ , huh?" Emily chuckled.

"It's a weird one." Alison nodded with a laugh.

"Wait until Hanna hears about it."

"I actually feel kind of honored. He likes my boobs so much that it was his first word."

"I like your boobs, too."

"Would you like to play with them?" Alison questioned cheekily.

"Yes, please." Emily grinned.

Alison grabbed her hand and pulled her towards their bedroom. They ran down the hallway giggling like two school-girls and then disappeared into their room, locking their door behind them.

Emily pushed Alison up against their bedroom door and put one arm up next to her face. She leaned in for a slow sensual kiss. When she pulled away, Alison was smiling at her.

"You are so damn sexy." Alison bit her lip.

Emily put her forehead against Alison's and a wicked grin spread across her face. She nibbled against Alison's lower lip and then pulled away.

"Swear jar."

"I'm paid up." Alison could feel a shock of desire shooting down into her belly and drifting lower. The stiffness from nursing Sam had given way to her passion for her wife. "So, let's do dirty things."

Emily grinned and lifted her brows. They quickly let their passion escalate. They'd found a balance between making each other feel good _and_ doing it in a timely manner. Because with three kids it wasn't often they had the chance to be alone.

Alison used up every last cent that she'd deposited into the swear jaw. And by the time they were finished, Emily owed another ten dollars.


	10. Halloween

**A/N:** _If you're reading and/or reviewing any of my work I just want to say thank you, you're amazing, and I love you. I'm continuously in my head about giving up writing altogether, but then I remember you nice people exist and it's enough to dull the self-hatred. Appreciate that.  
_

* * *

 **Prompt: Do you think maybe you can eventually do a prompt where it's Sam's first Halloween? And they dress him up in the cutest little outfit and he's matching with Lily and Grace.  
**

* * *

 _ **Halloween**_

There was something eerie in the air. The house was quiet, which was unsettling to Lily, because it wasn't very often that her moms weren't chatting about their day or her baby brother wasn't smacking one of his very noisy musical toys or squalling out weird high pitched baby noises. And the worst offender was her twin sister. Lily was convinced that Grace was part Howler Monkey. She made noises that didn't sound human. And she had the manners of a primate, too.

Lily took two seconds to appreciate the silence, but then she started to over-think it. She didn't like it when her sister was quiet. It usually meant she was plotting something. She was deep in thought when a loud bang startled her out of her trance.

"Lily!" Grace rapped loudly at the door.

And there she was. She probably would have just barged in, but Lily had learned to lock her door after her first kiss had nearly been interrupted by her ham of a sibling a few weeks ago.

"Lily, come on! Let's go! Open up!" Grace pounded on her sister's door.

"No. I look stupid. I'm not doing this." Lily grumbled back. She stared at her reflection.

She had never been big on Halloween. She'd outgrown trick-or-treating a few years ago. Grace still loved to go. And her family was really big into dressing up together. Last year they'd gone as characters from _Inside Out_. The year before had been _Game of Thrones._ Her direwolf costume had been hot as hell. And here she was again, stuck in the fluffiest hottest costume of the bunch. It was because she was too nice. And she let everyone else pick first. Next year she was going to suggest _The Little Mermaid_ and then call dibs on Ariel so all she would have to wear would be a seashell bra and a skirt. She'd make Grace wear the stupid crab costume. Sam would make a really cute Flounder. And her moms could rock Triton and Ursula.

"Li-ly!" Grace stretched her name into two syllables for emphasis.

"No. I'm citing irreconcilable differences. You see this as great. I do not."

"Lilian Piper!"

"Grace Estella!" Lily shot back mockingly.

"Peeease?" She heard a tiny high pitched voice that she'd never been able to turn down.

It was one of the few words Sam knew. Along with 'boob', 'Mama', 'no', 'sissy', 'go bye bye', and 'cool, dude'. The last one had been courtesy of Grace. She'd tried to get him to say 'bitchin' but her mothers did not approve.

Lily lowered her head and grumbled under her breath. She sighed and walked over to the door, unlocking it and coming face to face with Grace and her baby brother. Grace's face was painted silver and Sam was in his little puppy costume. He stared at her for half a minute, not recognizing her at first. When she softly smiled at him and said "hey, Sammy" he clapped his hands together in excitement and reached out for her, leaning out of Grace's arms.

"No fair using the kid against me." Lily scowled at her sister, who looked equally ridiculous in the bulky Tin Man costume she was wearing.

Sam looked adorable as Toto though. He reached up and touched the Cowardly Lion make-up on Lily's face, smudging it a little.

"It's his first Halloween. Don't you want it to be memorable?" Grace asked.

"He's a baby. He sucks on his toes and licks people's noses. He's not going to remember this."

"He will with proof." Grace opened up a tiny compartment in her oversized robot-looking costume and whipped out her phone, quickly snapping a picture of Lily and Sam.

"I hate you." Lily frowned.

"You look _so_ adorable." She jokingly reached out and scratched the curly braided mane on top of Lily's head, jostling the red bow on the top.

Sam squealed and then giggled. He laid his head against Lily's fuzzy costume and stroked the material with his tiny little hands. He tugged at the bearded mane underneath her chin.

"Here. Take one with me and Sam." Grace held her phone out to Lily and reached for Sam.

Sam screamed when Grace tried to take him out of Lily's arms. He tightened his fist into the lion mane and started kicking his feet in protest.

"NO! My sissy!" Sam stuck his lip out and furrowed an angry brow at Grace.

He laid his head back against Lily's shoulder and brought his thumb up to his mouth. He held Grace's gaze. She took a step back, a little offended.

"But I thought I was your favorite sister, Sammy."

Sam just blinked and sucked his thumb. Lily had a smarmy look on his face.

"He likes you better than me." Grace pouted.

"I don't dress him up in ridiculous outfits." Lily shrugged.

"Girls? Are you ready yet?" They heard Alison call out from downstairs.

It was already dusk and they wanted to get out and around the neighborhood before it got dark. They knew they needed to start early because Sam had refused to take his nap earlier, so they knew he would tire out quickly.

"Coming!" Grace called enthusiastically. She bounded down the hallway.

Lily looked down at her brother. His black Toto costume covered his entire body. She pulled the hood up over his head, fiddling until she got it so the ears were straight on the top of his head.

"I'm only doing this because I love you, Sammy," Lily said. She shifted him on her hip and leaned towards his face. "Can I have a kiss for courage?" she puckered her lips.

Sam knew what that meant. He pushed his lips out and gave her a sticky baby kiss on her jaw. At the very end of it, he opened his mouth and his tongue fell out like a dog's tongue and he smiled, drooling all over her chin. Lily chuckled and wiped the drool away and then went to meet her family in the living room.

"There's my little Toto." Emily smiled when she saw Lily walking in with Sam.

Emily's long hair was split evenly into two ponytails tied off with two little blue bows, matching the checkered blue dress she was wearing. The outfit was tied together with sparkly red shoes and a wicker basket.

Initially, Emily had suggested Alison be Dorothy, but Alison thought it would be easier for Emily to just throw her hair in pigtails. She planned to go with the blondeness of her hair to be the most fabulous Scarecrow anyone had ever seen.

"Do we really have to do this?" Lily mumbled as she handed a squirming Sam over to Emily. "This costume is really hot and itchy."

"Ma-ma." Sam cooed softly, smiling at Emily.

She kissed him on the forehead and then faced Lily.

"Lily, we all have to suffer a little. You think I want to walk around all night wearing these clunky heels? At least it's nice outside so you'll cool down. My feet have to suffer the whole time. Your sister and your mother really want this, Lily. So let's just keep the complaining to a minimum, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You look so cute." Emily ruffled the top of the mane on her head.

"Now you're just punishing me." Lily laughed.

Grace and Alison walked into the room. Grace had put the pointy Tin Man hat on her head and she had an oil can in her hand to complete her ensemble.

Alison had a pointed dark green hat on her head, her blonde hair flowing out in several directions. She'd done her best to make it look somewhat like straw.

She was wearing a long-sleeved green top that had yellow trimming around the collar. She had on a burlap colored brown skirt tied off with a roped belt. Her legs were covered with pale yellow ripped pantyhose running down into a pair of long tan boots that had light yellow tassels on them.

Emily smiled at her. Her wife was the sexiest Scarecrow that she'd ever seen. She couldn't wait until after the kids went to bed. Suddenly, she wasn't thinking about how much her feet were going to be hurting anymore. She was imagining kicking her shoes off in their bedroom at the end of the night.

"Are we ready to go?" Alison questioned.

"Oh, we forgot one thing." Grace scurried off into the kitchen.

A few seconds later she came back in with their dog Buster on his leash. He had on a light blue vest with spiky flames and gray wings sticking out the back. The wings matched his bluish-gray medium-length fur. There was a light blue hat with flames that matched the vest tied around his head, which was probably going to be pawed off the second they walked out the door.

"I still think Grace should have been the evil monkey." Lily suggested.

"Just you wait until next year when we do _The Three Little Pigs_." Grace grinned.

"I will huff and I will puff and I will throw a shoe at your face."

"Girls." Emily tried to mediate. "The night is young. Please save your squabbling for when your brother is screaming his head off and the dog has plopped down in the middle of the sidewalk and refuses to move until we take the hat off of his head and the neighbors are all staring at us and judging us. You know, normal family stuff."

Alison walked over to Emily.

"You look hot," she said.

"You too, babe." Emily replied.

"Ew, gross. Don't traumatize Sam with your mushy stuff." Grace shook her head with a frown.

The girls were at an age where love and affection was "icky", which was fine by their moms because it meant they weren't serious about dating yet, which meant they weren't swapping spit with anyone yet. At least not that they knew about. Lily still hadn't told anyone about her crush and her first kiss. Not even Grace. Because Grace had the biggest mouth in the world.

As if on cue, Grace started loudly singing _"If I only had a heart"._

"Are you ready for your first time trick-or-treating, baby boy?" Alison reached out and pinched Sam's cheeks, careful not to smudge the little black blob that had been drawn on his nose as the end of his doggy snout.

His mouth fell open into a stupid grin and he bounced in Emily's arms.

"Mama mama!" He exclaimed in excitement. "Go bye bye?" He asked.

"Alright Dorothy, lead the way." Alison smiled at Emily.

"Oh, forget _The_ _Three Little Pigs._ Next year we should do _Golden Girls_!" Grace's face lit up.

"I call Blanche." Lily quickly blurted out. She would have to wear less clothes that way.

"I want to be Sophia." Grace didn't argue.

"Why? So you can be a bitch?"

"Lily." Emily warned her about her language.

"No, so I can call you a slut." Grace shoved Lily and then raced out the door with the dog before her mothers could discipline her.

"How dare you! _I_ am a lady!" She channeled her best southern accent. "Flirting is just part of my heritage."

She ran out after Grace.

"I challenge you to a duel, my good lady!" They heard Grace say outside.

Alison and Emily peered out the door just in time to see Lily pull one of her lion gloves off and smack Grace in the face with it.

"What the hell, Lily?" Grace frowned.

"It's not a duel without the glove slap." Lily shrugged and put the glove back on. "I may be dressed as the cowardly lion, but I'm anything but scared, especially of you."

"Bring it, _Simba_."

"Like I'm afraid of you, you glorified slinky?" Lily swatted playfully at the tin hat on Grace's head.

"This is going to be a fun night." Emily laughed sarcastically.

" _Golden Girls_ isn't a _terrible_ idea for next year." Alison closed the door as they walked out. "We could even get Sam a little suit and tie and briefcase and he'll be the cutest little Stanley Zbornak ever."

"Let's survive this year first." Emily chuckled.

They took the kids around the block. Then they ventured a little out of the neighborhood. Sam was good for the most part. He got a little fussy when he saw something that scared him, but his sisters were always right there to assure him he was okay.

They ran into Caleb and Hanna on their way back to their neighborhood. The Rivers family had chosen a musical movie theme, too. They were Sandy and Danny from _Grease_. Their daughter Cami had wanted to be Frenchie because she wanted to wear the frilly pink cotton candy wig, so Caleb and Hanna had gone along with it.

"You are the cutest little Toto I've ever seen." Hanna gushed, playing with Sam's hands. He giggled.

"Hey, Cami." Lily waved.

"Hey, Lily."

"Your hair looks like an Easter egg." Grace grinned.

"You look like a can opener." Cami shot back with a smile.

"Give me that little puppy." Hanna motioned for Emily to hand the baby over.

A few seconds later Hanna was the one carrying Sam. It was comical to see the clashing of the two movies. Sandy from _Grease_ carrying around Toto from _The Wizard of Oz_.

"Wanna hit the Montgomery House? Finn says his grandparents are handing out full-sized candy bars." Grace suggested.

"Uh, yeah. Duh." Cami nodded.

Caleb and Hanna walked with Alison and Emily for a while. The girls ran ahead while the adults lingered behind. After a while, Caleb and Hanna had to run. Cami had a Halloween party she was going to.

Shortly after their friends left, the DiLaurentis-Fields family were about ready to call it quits. Sam was starting to get increasingly whiny. And the dog was stopping every two seconds to scratch at the costume on his back.

"Girls, are you almost finished?" Emily asked.

"I was finished the second I put on this costume." Lily admitted.

"Don't be surly." Alison scolded her. "Here, take your brother." She handed Sam over to Lily. "Why don't you go ahead and go home? Grace, you too."

"Huh?" Grace turned around to face them. She'd been too preoccupied shoving chocolate in her mouth to hear her mother.

"Come on, Willy Wonka, we're going home." Lily laughed.

They started walking ahead.

"You know, Willy Wonka wasn't the one who ate the chocolate. He just made it." Grace corrected her sister.

There was a pause, then a "shut up, Grace" before they turned the corner.

"Man, the attitude on that child." Alison shook her head in disbelief.

"Where do you think she got it from?" Emily teased her, wrapping her arm around Alison and pulling her close.

Alison turned into her wife's body so they were facing.

"You ready to call it a night?" Alison questioned, her hand running down from the small of Emily's back to her toned ass.

Emily leaned forward and kissed her.

"There's no place like home." Emily grinned against her lips.

When they got home they found Lily sitting on the couch with Sam. He had conked out on the walk back to the house. He was sleeping soundly against his sister's shoulder. Grace was sitting next to her singing "Over the Rainbow" softly to him while rubbing his back.

"Home sweet home." Alison smiled, looking at their children.

They stood there watching their little girls with their son. They turned to one another and smiled. Most days their lives were chaotic and exhausting, but it was all worth it for moments like this. The dreams that they had dared to dream really had come true.


	11. Surprise!

**Prompt: I was wondering if you could do a prompt where Alison and Emily finding out that this time around they're having a boy?**

* * *

 _I have been trying to get all of my prompts from Tumblr over to Fanfic. There are quite a few asks in my inbox. And this particular ask had been requested numerous occasions. Just a reminder that all my_ _AU family prompts take place in a universe in which Alison did not go to Beacon Heights. If you want a refresher on where my AU Liars are with their families, we've got:_

 _Rivers kid: Cami._

 _Fitz kid(s): Finn. And later (post Sam being born) Aurora._

 _Cavanaugh kids: Violet and Bailey._

 _DiLaurentis (Jason and his wife, Dani) kids: Leo and Maddox._

* * *

 **Surprise!**

Family was everything to Alison DiLaurentis-Fields. She'd spent so much of her youth trapped behind fake smiles that hid tumultuous secrets. She'd been suffocated by the pressure of existing in a picture perfect family, unable to tell her friends that behind all the jewels and riches there was a twisted sinister world in her household.

It had taken her years to build up the trust to let people love her. But when she finally found her chosen family in her childhood best friend, Emily, she realized that even broken children could become whole again. Their love story was anything but textbook. They'd been through hell together. But they managed to come out the other end.

The circumstances behind the conception of their twins sent both girls careening into a dark place. It had been the most trying time in their lives. But when the girls were born they loved them.

Grace and Lily were conceived in the dark, but they were raised in the light. They knew the strength of family. And Alison loved that family. Extending the family, however, was more than a little nerve-wracking. Yet, that's exactly what they were doing.

"That's _definitely_ a penis." Grace stared at one of her mother's ultrasound photos.

"That's a finger, Grace." Lily rolled her eyes. "You see the other four just like it?"

They were studying all of the ultrasound photos of their new baby sibling to try and make their decisions about the sex before the gender reveal party their moms were having that afternoon. Grace looked at the photo again.

"Maybe he's an alien and he's got five little willies."

"This explains why you're failing Bio."

"Excuse me, _what_?" Alison peered in through the kitchen doorway.

"Oh, shit." Grace jumped, knocking over her books. She glared at her sister. "You woke the sleeping dragon."

Alison walked into the room. She hadn't gained a ton of pregnancy weight yet, but she was already showing, though it was mostly in her face and chest. Her stomach was a rounded pouch. She was carrying high. If she wore loose fitting clothing no one could tell that she was pregnant. Though her mood swings rivaled that of a hormonal teenage girl. When she lost her cool she was like a volcanic eruption, leaving disaster and disarray in her wake.

"Grace, what have we told you about that mouth of yours?"

"I'm going to stand really still and hope it doesn't see me." Grace muttered through her teeth. She had an impish grin on her face.

"You're hilarious," Alison said flatly. She pointed to a container on the counter. "Swear jar."

"She said 'damn' earlier, too." Lily smirked.

Grace whipped her head over towards her sister, fire in her eyes.

"Lily, _why_?"

"Cuz I'm bored." Lily shrugged. "And it's funny when she gets mad at you."

"You're like the worst sister ever. I hope it _is_ a boy. And I hope he pees on you every time you change his diaper." Grace gave her sister a nasty look as she walked towards a jar on the kitchen counter.

She muttered under her breath as she pulled a crumpled up dollar bill from her pocket and shoved it into the jar.

"What's this about you failing Bio?" Alison gave her daughter a disapproving look.

"I'm not _failing_ exactly." Grace replied. She had a sheepish expression on her face. Sometimes she felt a little inferior to her sister. Everything came so easy to Lily. Grace wondered if the new baby would be as smart as her sister. It wasn't really a big deal, but she did act out because of it. "I just got a few points knocked off of my grade for getting in trouble in class."

"Why? What did you do?"

Lily snickered from where she was sitting at the kitchen table. Grace shot her a dirty look.

"Grace, I'm not going to ask you again." Alison glared at her.

"I glued boobs on the anatomy model."

Lily's little snickers turned into full blown cackles. Alison's mouth dropped open, but she didn't say anything. She was conflicted between being pissed off or laughing at the situation.

"Lily dared me." Grace pointed an accusatory finger at her sister.

"How…" Alison wasn't sure she wanted to know the details. "What did you even use for…just…how?"

"I found this humongous bra in the lost and found. I cut out the pads and filled it with ziplock baggies full of pudding and then glued the backs closed and stuck some pepperoni on the center on each side."

Alison wanted to be mad, but she was impressed with her child's ingenuity. If she only applied herself in other areas she could be running the world…

"I…may or may not have given a demonstration on lactating women with your pump…"

"You took my _pump_ to do this?" Alison exclaimed. "That was brand new!"

"It's only slightly used now." Grace shrugged.

"Yeah, with a hint of stale pepperoni smell." Lily added with a laugh.

"You're not helping." Grace frowned.

"Not trying to."

Grace cut her eyes at Lily. She grabbed another dollar from her pocket and shoved it into the jar before looking at Lily and proclaiming,

"Bitch, I will cut you."

"Keep talking. I'd love to go on vacation on your dime." Lily grinned.

Alison looked at her two bickering girls and realized that she and Emily were officially certifiable for wanting to bring another child into their lives. Alison rolled her eyes and walked over to where Grace's books had landed on the floor.

Lily and Grace hustled to get them up before Alison could lean down to grab them. They'd been overly protective about her pregnancy.

"I can lift a two pound book, girls." Alison frowned in annoyance.

"Totally." Lily nodded. "We just didn't want you to see what's in them."

"Banned books haven't been a thing since the 1980s."

"Not true. I read a news story about how _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _Harry Potter_ were both banned this year."

"Why would anyone ban _Harry Potter_?" Grace questioned. "It's a magical journey of friendship and love." She thought about it for a second. "Dumbledore was kind of a dick, though."

"Grace…jar." Alison pointed.

"Crap." Grace muttered.

"You're not wrong though." Alison nodded. "He _was_ a dick."

"Hey, how come you can say it, but I can't?"

"Because I'm your mother. Do as I say. Not as I do."

"Can I write my English paper on _Harry Potter_ and quote you on Dumbledore being…uh…that part of the male anatomy?" Grace asked.

"As long as you use the proper citations." No child of hers was going to get points deducted for not doing her works cited page right.

Lily put Grace's books on the table and then looked at her mother.

"Seriously, don't look in these. The boobs were nothing in comparison to what's in these things. We don't want to warp the baby's fragile little mind."

" _You're_ the baby's sisters. This kid doesn't stand a chance."

"You're the one that raised us." Grace smarted back.

"Grace Estella DiLaurentis-Fields…"

"Grace, don't taunt your mother." Emily walked into the kitchen with a water bottle in her hand.

Her brow was lined with sweat and her cheeks were bright red. She'd been running on the treadmill for nearly half an hour.

"Why? Is it bad for the baby?"

"No. It's just that _I_ have to deal with the hormones."

"I'm going to kill every single one of you in your sleep." Alison glared at her family.

"You see? You see what you've done?" Lily looked at Grace and then motioned towards their very agitated mother.

"So? We'll just feed her some chocolate and let her be for a while."

"Go get ready for the gender reveal." Emily lightly smacked Grace on the back of the head. Grace smiled at her mom before she walked out of the room. Emily looked at their other daughter. "You too, Lily."

Lily grabbed her things and followed her sister.

"Everyone is going to be here at four." Emily put her water bottle down. "Hanna has the supplies and Aria is picking up the cake."

Alison walked over to where Emily was standing. Emily grabbed a glass and filled it up with water. Alison assumed Emily was going to drink it, but instead the brunette gave it to her.

"How was your nap?" Emily asked.

Alison had been taking a lot of power naps, because she didn't sleep well at night. She had indigestion and had to pee almost every thirty minutes. And when she did sleep she had weird dreams.

"Short." Alison took a sip of water. She put the glass down on the counter and reached up and rubbed her neck. "Our little _darlings_ were sniping at one another loud enough to wake the dead."

Emily gently put her hand against Alison's neck and slipped her fingers against her shoulder. She could feel the muscle tension in Alison's neck. She gently started to massage a knot she found. Emily rubbed her shoulder, trying to work out the kink in her neck.

"Everything okay? You're really tense. And you seem a little jittery."

"I'm fine. It's just…I can't believe we're really doing this." Alison moved her neck to give Emily better access.

"I know they're kind of tacky, but they're apparently all the rage…"

"No, not the reveal." Alison cut Emily off. " _This_." She motioned to her stomach. "We already have two little Tasmanian devils we can't control. Why did we think we needed a third?"

"How can we have a three-ring circus if we don't have a trio of children?" Emily quipped.

Alison couldn't help but laugh.

"I have no doubt that Grace would be front and center leading the show." She looked over her shoulder to face Emily. "Do you have any idea what your child did at school?"

"Oh, she's _my_ child when she's in trouble?" Emily chuckled

"I still maintain that the reason she's such a ham is because you encouraged her bad behavior when she was a baby."

"How?" Emily scoffed.

"Did you or did you not laugh until you cried every time she dumped food on her head or slung it at Lily?"

"Okay. That's fair." Emily didn't disagree. "But come on…a baby covered in spaghetti? Who doesn't laugh at that?"

"The parent who has to pick noodles out of the bathtub drain." Alison replied dryly. "Did you know she's acting out in school now?"

"What? You mean the boob thing?"

"You _knew_?"

"Yeah, the school called me."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I haven't had a chance yet. It just happened yesterday. Grace and I had a conversation last night. I'm handling it. I was going to talk to you about it tonight after the party."

"What are we going to do with her?" Alison shook her head. She felt a flutter in her stomach. The baby was moving. She moved her hand to her stomach. She smiled. "What if this one is just like her?"

"We would be so lucky." Emily moved her hand down next to Alison's, waiting to feel their little one move again. "Maybe the third time will be the charm." Emily leaned down and pressed a kiss against her hot skin.

"You know we could have just borrowed one of our friend's kids if we were desperate enough. Finn is still young and cute."

"Aria says he bit Ezra the other day."

"Another reason to love him." Alison laughed.

They both felt the baby kick, drawing their eyesight down towards Alison's belly. Emily smiled.

"So, are you thinking boy or girl?" Emily asked.

"Is it bad that I hope it's a boy? I just don't know if I can handle any more estrogen in this house. So that probably means it will be a girl." She peered at Emily. "What about you? What do you think?"

"Wouldn't it be something if it was twins again?"

"Emily Catherine DiLaurentis-Fields, I will smother you with a pillow…"

Emily laughed softly. She kept her palm against Alison's stomach. She was silent for a few seconds.

"I think no matter what the sex is, this baby is going to be beautiful, just like its mama."

Alison felt blood rush to her cheeks. She shook her head.

"No, you don't get to get out of the question that easily. The whole point of this gender reveal nonsense is that we get to lord it over people when we're right."

"Oh? Is _that_ what this is about? Not about celebrating bringing another life into the world?" Emily teased.

"Come on. Just make a call. Boy or girl. You have to."

Emily moved down until her eyes were level with Alison's stomach. She lifted her shirt and kissed her belly. The baby responded. Alison wasn't surprised. The baby always responded to Emily. Emily stood back up and took Alison's hands in hers.

"I think Grace should have hung a hotdog off of the anatomy doll instead of boobs."

"So, you think it's a boy?"

"I do."

There was a beat of silence and then Alison grimaced.

"Shit. I don't know anything about how to raise a boy."

"Aria says it's a lot like raising girls, but with more dirt, more wiggling, and more geysers of pee erupting like Old Faithful."

"I think I'd prefer that to the hormones in this family. Grace is already testing my last nerve and Lily is moody as hell."

"That's because they're growing up. Relax. We've got this parenting thing down. They may get into trouble every now and then, but they're good kids."

But Emily was singing a different tune two hours later after all of their friends and their kids showed up for the gender reveal party.

They had refreshments and then went outside for the reveal, which Spencer and Hanna had set up with the help of their husbands and daughters.

Spencer had been in charge of the gender reveal, mostly because they knew Hanna couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. They had set up a large dart board with several opaque balloons filled with paint. There were darts on a tray near the patio.

Emily's mother Pam gave a beautiful speech about the day she and her late husband had found out that they were having a girl. Hanna told a similar story about her daughter while her husband Caleb pinched their little girl's cheeks and annoyed her. Spencer talked about both of her girls while sharing loving glances with her husband Toby.

The kids fidgeted, because they were ready to get to the games. It was Aria's little boy Finn who drew the attention away from the adults.

"I didn't grow in my mommy's tummy," Finn said quietly. He looked sad.

"Because you grew in her heart." Lily tapped his nose.

"And that makes you more special than _all_ of us." Grace added, tousling his hair.

The shy little boy smiled at them and then hugged them. He stayed attached to them until their mothers called for them.

Lily and Grace jogged over to where the adults were standing in front of the dart board.

"I don't know if arming these two with darts is such a good idea." Emily frowned.

"Oh, but they're _good kids_ , remember?" Alison shoved Emily with a teasing smile on her face.

"Don't worry. I'll behave." Grace threw her hands up in the air, palms forward.

"You don't know the meaning of the word." Lily laughed.

"Would you be mad if I accidentally stabbed her?" Grace looked at Alison.

"We want to see pink or blue. Not red." Alison warned her.

"Sweet. Our blood is technically blue inside of our body because of our oxygen. Loophole."

Alison glanced at Emily, impressed that Grace knew that. Perhaps she wasn't doing as poorly in Biology as they thought.

Spencer handed them each a dart and then she gave one to Emily and one to Alison. They lined up next to one another and took aim at the board.

"Ready?" Spencer asked. She glanced at everyone watching, making sure all the cameras were rolling. "Aim…"

"FIRE!" It was Grace who made the final call, and hers was the first dart to go sailing through the air. It landed a few inches next to a balloon.

Lily, Alison, and Emily threw their darts. Alison's bounced off the side of the board. Emily's dart landed right next to Grace's. And Lily's hit the top of the board. They all grabbed another dart and threw them again.

This time, two darts hit balloons. Grace's and Emily's.

Blue paint splattered all over the place.

Alison's face brightened in joy. Emily threw her hands up in excitement. Grace turned to Lily and exclaimed,

"I _told_ you it was a penis! IN YOUR FACE!" She yelled.

Alison and Emily embraced one another and shared a kiss. They were so wrapped up in the fact that they were having a baby boy that they didn't notice that Hanna was handing their children water pistols.

"Hey, moms?" Grace called mischievously.

Alison and Emily faced the twins and saw them both aiming the guns at them. Emily saw the huge grin on Hanna's face and she knew immediately that the guns were filled with paint.

"No. No, don't you dare!" Emily ordered.

Lily and Grace looked at one another and then aimed their weapons and pulled the trigger. A stream of blue paint shot out across the yard and splashed off of Emily, hitting Alison in the process. Alison made a noise between a squeal and a laugh. Emily looked down at the blue paint coating her clothes. Lily and Grace ran off, spraying one another with the pistols.

"This was your doing, wasn't it?" Emily looked at her best friend.

"Consider it payback for helping Cami get her hands on those glitter bombs for my birthday. I'm still cleaning confetti out of my carpet."

"Well, I guess we need to get used to messes again." Emily chuckled.

She felt Hanna needling her side.

"Here." Hanna handed Emily a pistol filled with paint. She tossed one to Alison, too. "Go get 'em."

"What do you say?" Emily looked at Alison. "Just like old times? We'll tag-team them. I'll take Grace. You take Lily."

"No. Leave Grace to me." Alison grinned. "She's going to go to school looking like a smurf when I'm through with her."

The two of them felt like children again as they sprinted after their daughters.

The adults passed out paint guns to everyone. It became an all-out war. First it was parents against their children. Then it split up into boys versus girls.

The backyard was filled with more laughter than they'd ever heard. They had a ball. Hanna's daughter Cami dive-bombed Spencer's girls Bailey and Violet. Finn ran up to his dad and smeared paint all over him before Ezra picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder, eliciting a loud squeal of laughter. Caleb threw a balloon filled with paint at Hanna, but it accidentally hit Toby. Toby retaliated with two balloons, painting Caleb blue.

Alison and Emily cornered their girls and all four of them doused each other in paint. Most of it managed to miss Lily. But Alison, Emily, and Grace all ran in at the same time and trapped her in a family hug, dousing her with the blue paint they were covered in.

Alison took a moment to pull away and look at the huge smiles on their faces. After the party she started to feel better about parenting in general. She was excited about meeting their son.

Later that night when she was lying in bed with her wife she couldn't stop touching her stomach. Every little hiccup felt like an entirely different experience.

She felt the bed shake and when she looked up she saw Emily leaning on her elbow, smiling at her. She still had a hint of blue in her hair. She wasn't surprised. By the time they had finished the paint war the backyard had looked like the movie _Avatar_ had exploded. Alison peered at the blue paint. She smiled when she thought about their son.

"We're having a baby." Alison smiled at her. "We did this. We're _doing_ this."

"We are." Emily rubbed Alison's belly with a smile on her face. "Our baby boy."

Alison thought about the pure joy she'd felt with her family when they were playing outside, and she realized what bliss it was to have them in her life. She couldn't wait to bring her son into their lives. She couldn't wait to start making memories with him. Because family was everything to Alison DiLaurentis-Fields. And her family had her heart.


	12. Pregnancy Brain

**Prompt: Oh my god can you pls do a prompt of them having a fight and Ali using the argument (that a pregnant woman is always right because she has two brains)?**

* * *

 **A/N:** _For clarification, this prompt was a direct result of Sasha Pieterse saying in an interview that she went back and forth with Shay Mitchell sharing funny memes and that the latest was "A pregnant woman is always right because she has two brains")._

* * *

 _ **Pregnancy Brain**_

Normally Emily wasn't a very argumentative person. She didn't see the need in useless fights. She'd spent too much of her youth fighting to let it carry over into her adult life.

But her wife didn't make it easy. Of course, they had the typical little squabbles about finances and child-rearing. And sometimes they argued about smaller things, like chores. Nothing life-altering. Just typical relationship bickering.

Lately though, Alison had been a lot more belligerent about things. Emily tried to remember it was just the pregnancy hormones, but Alison nitpicked about the strangest little things and it started to take its toll on the brunette.

One day it came to a head over the stupidest thing.

Candy.

Alison had been craving homemade M&M cookies, so Emily went to work making her some. After spending a few hours making a couple of batches she took a plate of them to Alison.

The blonde was sitting on the living room sofa reading a magazine. Her feet were propped up, not that she could really see them over her pregnant belly. She heard Emily coming and put the magazine down.

"You really need to tell this kid to get out of me. I'm tired of him karate chopping my insides and sleeping on my bladder." She looked up. The expression on her face changed when she saw the sweets in Emily's hands. "Oh, those look so good!"

Emily sat down next to her with a smile and offered her the plate of fresh cookies and a glass of milk. Alison took one of the cookies and held it up underneath her nose. Her senses had gotten insanely sharp, and certain smells automatically put her at ease.

"It's a cookie, Ali. Not cocaine. You can't snort it." Emily gave her a hard time.

Alison offered her a sarcastic smile before biting into the cookie. She chewed a few times and then made a face.

"What is it?" Emily asked with a frown.

She knew she wasn't going to win any awards for her baking skills, but she'd gotten better at cooking over the years. These weren't her disastrous empanadas. They were cookies. Children could bake cookies.

"You didn't pick out the green ones." Alison made a face at the cookie. She observed the different colors of M&Ms sprinkled throughout the baked good.

"What?"

"The green ones. You know I don't like how they taste."

Emily laughed. Of all the things Alison could complain about, her disliking the color of a candy had never crossed her mind.

"They taste the same."

"No, they don't."

"Alison, it's literally just food coloring and chocolate. Any difference in taste is all in your head."

"There have been proven studies…"

"About M&Ms?" She let out another boisterous laugh. "Where? I'd like to read these studies."

"I don't know off the top of my head. Just google it."

"How very academic." Emily scoffed.

"Let's do a little science experiment." Alison put her feet down. She reached for a dish of M&Ms that Emily had brought her when she'd started baking the cookies. "Close your eyes."

"This is ridiculous." Emily usually let little things like this go, but the idea that food coloring made things taste different was ludicrous to her.

"Would you humor your very pregnant wife, please?" Alison scowled at her.

Emily rolled her eyes and shook her head. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Alison gave her a red M&M and told her to savor it for a few minutes. Then she repeated the process with a blue one and a brown one.

"Well?" Alison asked.

Emily opened her eyes.

"It tastes like chocolate." Emily shrugged.

"No, it doesn't!" Her argument was stronger this time.

Emily opened her mouth to tell her not to overreact, but thankfully before she said it, which she knew would have been stupid, the front door swung open and their daughters walked in. They were chatting about some school assignment.

"Oh, do I smell cookies?" Grace's eyes lit up in excitement.

"Go ahead and help yourself. Your mother thinks I've poisoned them with green food coloring," Emily said sardonically.

"Uh…okay?" Grace wasn't sure what to say to that.

They disappeared into the kitchen and came out with their plentiful bounty of sugar a few minutes later.

"Girls, why don't you settle something for us." Alison waved them over.

Grace and Lily looked at each other in uncertainty.

"You're really going to pull them into it?" Emily snickered.

"Wait, are you two fighting?" Lily questioned.

"If you get divorced we get two birthdays and two Christmases, right?" Grace shoved the remainder of her cookie in her mouth.

"Close your mouth when you chew you animal." Lily frowned.

"At least _someone_ appreciates my cooking around here," Emily muttered.

"No one is getting divorced." Alison laughed. "Just do me a favor and try a few of these M&Ms."

"Is this a trick?" Lily asked warily.

"No. Your mother here seems to think that I've made these M&M flavors up in my head…"

"This…" Grace made a face, "…this is what you're fighting over?"

Though it shouldn't have been a surprise to her. The littlest things set Alison off. Her hormones were completely out of whack.

"I just wanted to do something nice." Emily feigned an exasperated sigh.

"You be quiet." Alison shoved her playfully.

Emily shrugged with a smile.

The girls each took a few pieces of candy. Grace tried a brown one and then a yellow one.

"Tastes the same to me." Grace shrugged. She shoved the rest of the M&Ms in her mouth and nearly swallowed them whole.

Emily grinned smugly at Alison.

"She doesn't count. She's a human garbage disposal." Alison frowned.

"Gee, thanks mom." Grace replied dryly.

Lily tried a red M&M and then a yellow one. Her face deepened in concentration. She tried a brown one next. Then she tried another yellow one.

"It does taste different." Lily nodded.

"You're out of the will." Emily threatened.

"I guess you just have to have a distinguished palate," Alison said with a self-righteous look on her face.

"This doesn't prove anything. It's two against two." Emily argued.

"You're right." Alison's face sparkled with delight. She slowly looked down at her belly. "Except it's not. _He's_ the tie-breaker. And since he's inside of _me_ , he has _my_ taste…which means…"

Grace and Lily looked at each other, breaking into a grin, as if to say to one another _"here we go"_.

"… _I'm_ right." Alison nodded in victory. "I've got _two_ brains." She grinned. "I'm smarter. It's just how it is."

The twins had heard it hundreds of times before, but it was still hysterical to them. Their laughter echoed off of the walls.

"Fine." Emily threw her hands up in defeat. She laughed. "You win."

Alison grinned. They both laughed. Alison laid her head against Emily's shoulder and ran her palm against her arm and grabbed her hand. Emily kissed the top of her head and Alison peered up at her.

"It was very sweet of you to make cookies for me. Thank you." She wrapped her fingers around Emily's.

"Gross. I think I'm going to hurl up _all_ the flavors." Grace made fun of their public display of affection.

Just to really rub it in their faces, Alison sat up and pressed her lips against Emily's. Emily kissed her back, quietly thinking to herself that there might be something to the whole "flavor" thing, because Alison's lips did taste different.

When they pulled away they smiled at one another and then gave their daughters a smug look. Alison popped an M&M in her mouth. She saw a wide smile growing on Emily's face. Grace and Lily started to laugh.

"What?" Alison asked.

"Mom, that was a _green_ one."

Alison immediately turned to Emily, who looked like she was silently gloating. Alison didn't let it faze her in the least. She grabbed a handful of the candied coated chocolate and shrugged.

"Whatever. I'm still right."

And no one in the room was going to argue with her. She did, after all, have _two_ brains.


	13. Night Out

**Prompt: Hi! I was wondering if you could write a prompt of Alison and Emily coming home to find the twins dressed their little brother as Stitch? **

* * *

_**Night Out**_

It was their first night out in months. It should have been a grand celebration, a time to let loose. Emily DiLaurentis-Fields had planned the quiet intimate night for her wife, the mother of her three children. First they had taken a moonlit walk together, connecting, just the two of them without the constant interruption of their daughters and baby boy. The quiet was almost unnerving. They weren't used to not having kids around.

After their walk they had taken a canoe ride under the stars. And to top off the night Emily had secured a spot at one of the town's hottest restaurants that usually required a two week waiting period to get in. Afterwards she had a few more things planned. The whole night was supposed to be relaxing. But she noticed that Alison seemed anything _but_ relaxed.

Alison was holding her tension in her shoulders. The blonde mama bear had a reason to be nervous. It was the twins first time _alone_ with their baby brother. They were and responsible. Well, Lily was responsible. But even so, Alison found her mind littered with questions. Had they made sure all of the toxic cleaning supplies were locked up? Did Lily and Grace know the number to poison control? Had they locked all the doors and windows? Did the girls know where the fire extinguisher was in case of an emergency? What if the baby put something in his mouth and choked on it? Were all the scissors put away? Were all the electrical outlets covered? What if their son got scared and wanted his mommies? What if he needed something and they weren't there?

Everything that could possibly go wrong was going on through her head. Fires, floods, the end of the earth. The pensive look on her face coupled with the fact that she had twirled a huge lump of pasta on to her fork and was still mindlessly spinning the utensil gave her away.

"Alison, they're fine." Emily put her hand on top of Alison's, stilling her motions. "The girls watch him all the time when we're home. And Aria promised to look in on them from time to time."

"I know." Alison sighed. "It's just…" She paused, her lips pursed.

"You miss them." Emily smiled softly.

Alison nodded, shying away, like she was embarrassed to admit she had become one of those helicopter moms. Emily curled her fingers into Alison's palm.

"I miss them, too." She squeezed Alison's hand. Not having their son with them made her feel a longing emptiness. But she knew her daughters were taking care of him.

"What do you think they're doing right now?" Alison asked.

Emily glanced at her watch. If she knew her daughters they were up to no good. They were probably drawing all over their little brother's face and gluing fake eyebrows on him and feeding him a bunch of sugar so they could watch him toddle around on a sugar high with a bucket on his head.

"They're probably reading him a bedtime story." Emily tried to keep a straight face. She didn't want to give Alison any other ideas of what could go wrong.

"We should call them to check in." Alison bit down on her lip.

"Sweetie, relax." Emily rubbed Alison's hand. "He's a tough kid. He can handle a few hours with his big sisters. We made him durable." She assured her. "Remember when he started walking?"

"My back still hurts from squatting down and following him around everywhere." Alison nodded with a quiet laugh. She'd referred to that time as "The Hunchback phase" because she spent all of her time hunched over him.

"And do you remember what happened when he fell and hit his head on the coffee table?" Emily asked.

"Besides my heart attack?" Alison asked sarcastically.

If Emily was trying to make her feel _better_ about leaving their baby alone she was not succeeding.

"He got right back up and kept going. He didn't shed one tear. And do you remember why?"

Alison stopped to think about it. Once her heavy fear and her panic had subsided that day she had seen something beautiful.

"Because Lily and Grace were right there to encourage him to get back up and try again." Alison spoke fondly of her daughters.

"They're good girls. They'll take care of him."

"Yeah." Alison rolled her palm up to meet Emily's hand on top of hers. She smiled at her.

She wordlessly slipped her hand away from Emily's and then went back to her dinner. Emily watched her for a few minutes. The blonde seemed more at ease, but her thoughts were still distant. Her gaze was on her food, but her mind was on their son. Alison noticed that Emily had stopped eating. She glanced up at her.

"Everything okay?" Alison asked.

"Let's go home." Emily reached down and pulled her napkin away from her lap. She put it on the table.

"Really?" Alison's face lit up. Her excitement wavered for a second. "Oh, but Em, you planned this whole night…"

"The goal of this night was to make you happy," Emily said, knowing that nothing on earth would make her wife happier than seeing their son before he went to bed. "Let's go see our babies. I know they make you smile."

"This is why I love you so much." Alison leaned over the table and kissed her. Her wife knew her so well.

Emily paid the check and then drove home. Alison watched the clock the whole time, wondering if they would make it home before their son fell asleep. Alison had worked herself up so much that she expected a loud chaotic scene with lots of screaming and things on fire when she walked through the door. Instead, they walked into the living room to find a few floor puzzles laid out, a coloring book and crayons sitting on the table, and the TV on low volume.

Their daughters were curled up on the couch with their baby brother. Grace was on one end, her head against the crook of the couch and her feet stretched out over the ottoman. Lily was on the other end, her feet plopped on top of Grace's legs. They were both asleep. Their little brother was sandwiched between them leaning against Lily, his cheek resting against her side. His bright alert eyes were full of excitement over seeing his moms.

He climbed down off of the couch, pulling what looked to be a blue blanket down with him. When his feet touched the floor they saw that it wasn't a blanket he had wrapped around his body. The blue hood over his head had bright pink ears outlined by blue wool. The onesie costume was covering his entire body from head to toe.

"Hi, baby." Alison said softly as he wobbled on his feet to get over to his moms.

"Did you tire your sisters out?" Emily chuckled.

"Sissies sleeping." He put his chubby little finger against his lips and shushed his moms. He stopped at Alison's feet and looked up at her. "Hi, Mama."

Alison thought her heart might melt at the sight of him. The only thing she could see around the face of his costume were his eyes and his smile. His rosy red cheeks puffed out when he grinned up at his mothers.

"Aw, look at you all dressed up like a…blue little koala." Alison kneeled down and picked him up. He kissed her nose, full open mouth, licking her with his tongue, because he was still learning how to kiss.

"Please tell me you're joking. You don't know who he is supposed to be?" Emily raised a single brow at Alison.

"He's mama's little koala bear." Alison nuzzled his face with her nose. She didn't care that he'd slobbered all over her. He giggled.

"He's _Stitch_. From _Lilo and Stitch."_ Emily laughed.

"I never saw that one."

"You _what_? I'm contacting a divorce attorney. I don't even know who you are." Emily teased her.

"Hi, mommy." He reached for Emily. Alison leaned over so he could hug Emily's neck. He curled his neck and pushed against Emily's shoulder.

"Hi, sweet boy." Emily kissed the top of his soft head.

He pulled up and looked at Emily and then back at Alison. He looked at his sleeping sisters on the couch. He started squirming in Alison's arms.

"Down, mama." He demanded.

Alison put him down and he turned away from them. He took a few steps and started to stumble, but put his hands out on the ground before he hit the floor. His butt was up in the air, a little lump for a tail sticking straight up as he moved forward. He got back to his feet and then walked back over to the couch. He reached up and put his hands against Lily's thigh and shook her.

"Wiwo." He curled his little fingers against her pants and tugged on them. It took Alison and Emily a minute to realize he was trying to say "Lilo." Not Lily, but Lilo.

"Hmm? What's wrong, buddy?" Lily yawned. She opened her eyes and stretched.

"Mommies home." He climbed up on the couch, jostling Grace awake as well.

The girls both turned and faced their mothers. Lily and Grace looked at one another nervously. Had they really dozed off when they were supposed to be keeping an eye on their little brother?

"Grace, you fell asleep?" Lily was quick to throw her sister under the bus.

"I thought you were watching him!" Grace frowned.

Emily and Alison looked at one another, amused. They decided to let the girls sweat it out for a little bit.

"We…um…" Lily chuckled nervously, pulling her brother into her lap. "Smile, wave, be cute." She whispered to him.

He giggled. Alison and Emily still didn't say anything.

"Okay, admittedly this looks bad." Grace smiled nervously.

"Nothing is on fire. Your brother is still alive." Emily walked over to the girls. She squeezed on to the couch between them. "I think we can call this one a win."

Grace and Lily breathed a sigh of relief.

"What have you party animals been up to tonight?" Alison pushed her way in next to Emily.

"Oh, you know. Keg stands. Beer pong. Drugs and rock and roll. The norm." Lily leaned in and snorted against her little brother's cheek to make him laugh.

He squealed out a string of giggles. All of the girls smiled.

"Do you like his outfit?" Grace questioned. "We've been saving it for a special occasion. We thought tonight was fitting since it was all about family time. The _Lilo and Stitch_ way."

"Your mother doesn't know who _Lilo and Stitch_ are." Emily smiled crookedly at Alison.

Grace looked at Alison. Her jaw dropped.

"I will disown you, mother."

"I'm offended." Lily added, looking at the toddler on her lap. "Tell mom what we learned tonight, little man."

"Ohana," he said, crawling into Emily's lap. He looked up at Alison.

"It means family." Grace clarified. She leaned over and took her brother's hands, moving them up and down, making him laugh. "And family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten, right?"

"Ohana!" He exclaimed a little more enthusiastically. He bounced in Emily's lap, glancing back at Lily, then looking at Grace. "I love you sissies and mommies."

"We love you, too, Sammy." Grace leaned across Alison's lap and placed a kiss on her little brother's forehead.

The day Samuel Wayne DiLaurentis-Fields had been born he had stolen every single one of their hearts. He was so loved. And he knew it.

Emily and Alison glanced at one another, their hearts completely full. Alison leaned in and placed a kiss on Emily's lips. She mouthed a silent "I love you" to her wife. She was so thankful they were sharing this moment. All Emily had wanted to do was make this night special for Alison. It turns out, everything they needed to make it special was right at home.


	14. Adulting

**Prompt: Hey! I was wondering if you could do a prompt where Ali's maternity leave is over and she doesn't want to go back to work but at the same time she wants to? Please and thank you in advance.**

* * *

 **A/N:** _*le gasp*, what's this? TWO updates on two different fics in one night? It's mostly because I feel guilty about how heavy "Tapestry of Scars" is and I wanted to give my readers a little love to fall back on. I've even got a friend dogging me about writing a fic about a pregnant Emily that *isn't* angsty (would be AU, more in-line with the books minus Alison being a psycho). Imagine that. I still don't know about my future writing for Emison, but I have a lot of people bribing me, so know that I do hear you all.  
_

 _For now, enjoy a devious baby and a batshit crazy Mama-bear Ali._ _I played with the timeline a little to make Sam a skosh older so he could be more than a little adorable baby lump._

* * *

 _ **Adulting**_

Alison woke up almost two hours before her alarm was set to go off. She hadn't slept well. Thoughts had been swirling around in her head for the past several days. She had butterflies in her stomach about returning to work after having spent so much time at home with her son. She knew it was time, but she felt like everything was going to change. She was afraid of all the things she was going to miss.

She was also nervous about how he would react without having her around. Would he be sad? Cranky? Would he even miss her at all?

She hadn't been able to come to terms with the idea of her son at daycare. She'd gotten pissed when Emily said it had been good enough for the twins.

"Because they were older when we started taking them." Alison scowled angrily at her wife. "Your mom watched them a lot. They were with family."

Emily's mom was working again, so they couldn't ask her. Jason and his family lived in New York. Alison had suggested one of their friends could care for him. Emily gently reminded her that they had to work as well.

"Well, except I think that Aria is in between books right now." Emily thought it over. "She is taking some time off."

Aria's son, Finn was starting first grade and she wanted to be more involved in mommy things since she'd been traveling so much on her book tour. She'd been talking with Ezra about adopting another baby. They were trying to get set up for the adoption process.

"You want to call Aria and see if she's up for it?" Emily asked.

Alison wavered on the suggestion, because she was having trouble with the idea of leaving Sam with _anyone_. But she eventually came to her senses.

Aria jumped at the chance to take him. She said that it would get her used to having a little one in the house again. And she knew that Finn would love to come home from school and have Sam to play with.

Alison felt a little more at ease when they had their plan set in place. But the morning they were getting ready for the big day, Alison was a nervous wreck. She was short-tempered with the girls and snippy with Emily.

She snapped at Emily when they were brushing their teeth and then hurried off to get Sam ready, leaving Emily standing in the bathroom in confusion. All she'd done was ask Alison to pass the floss to her. It had set her off for some reason.

Over the years, the brunette had gotten used to Alison's mood swings. Sometimes she just let it go. Other times she knew she needed to step up and say something. She sighed, letting the toothbrush in her mouth fall slack.

"I married a crazy person." She said assuredly to her reflection.

She finished brushing her teeth and went to find her "crazy person". Alison was running around Sam's room grabbing a bunch of random items while Sam watched her from his crib. He gripped the guard rail and chewed on the edge. He squealed in excitement when he saw Emily.

"Hey, buddy." She smiled.

"We need to hurry. I told Aria we'd be there by 8. We should get him dressed."

"He hasn't had his breakfast yet. You know how messy he gets…"

"He has a bib, Emily." Alison sounded suspiciously like a teenager saying _duh_.

"Hey, is everything okay with you?" Emily reached out and touched her arm. "You seem to be…um…" _having a total meltdown_ would be putting it lightly, and it would piss Alison off even further. She knew that Alison was having a hard time with the idea of leaving Sam. "You just seem kind of stressed. Why don't you go make yourself some tea and relax? I'll get Sam ready and wake the girls."

"I would love to, but I have to finish packing for him." Alison grabbed a diaper bag and started stuffing things into it.

"I can do that. It's fine."

"No. Last time you forgot the binky _and_ his favorite stuffy."

"That was _one_ time. I remembered the essentials." Emily rolled her eyes. "We don't have to pack the whole house every time we go out."

"There are just certain things that comfort him." Alison held up a bottle of diaper cream. "These are his most precious moments and I want him to be comforted!"

She was slowly starting to become unhinged.

"Rash cream is a precious moment?" Emily didn't help the situation.

Alison scowled at her and threw a diaper at her head. Emily dodged it and started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Alison asked.

"It's just that…" She laughed again. "Your hormones are the one out of whack this time. You were so chill with the girls. I lost my mind when I couldn't get you to take your damn prenatal vitamins. And now you're making precious memories with diaper cream and tossing our son's underwear at my head."

There was a beat of silence.

"Oh my God, you're right." Alison hated it when Emily was right. "I've turned into one of those crazy helicopter moms. Our son is going to live at home until he's forty. We have to start teaching him independence…"

"Whoa, spiraling a little hard in the wrong direction there. Reel it in, Ali." Emily touched her arm and kissed her temple. "Just take a breath."

Alison stared at the mess she'd made in Sam's room. She spotted his favorite puppy stuffy on the floor.

"There it is." She grabbed it and started packing again.

Emily walked back over to Sam's crib.

"Alright, you moocher, let's get you dressed while mommy finishes this little meltdown, okay?" She smiled at him.

"Don't go with the blue bear onesie. It gives him a rash." Alison stopped flinging things around long enough to look back at her wife. "Oh, and put the puppy socks on him. He loves his puppy socks."

"Babe, he pulls his socks off after thirty seconds. I hardly think that…" She stopped talking when she saw the look on Alison's face. "Puppy socks it is. Whatever you say, honey."

Sam reached out for Emily. She grasped him and pulled him up by his tiny little underarms. His arms were so chunky. She kissed his head, reveling in his sweet baby smell.

He babbled, words that didn't have much meaning, but words that meant the world to his mothers, because despite them not sounding like actual words, they knew exactly what he was saying.

Emily changed his diaper and put him in Alison's favorite onesie. She slipped his puppy socks on, which he promptly pulled off, proving Emily's point.

Alison finished packing up Sam's bag, stuffing in as many of his favorite things that she could fit into it.

Emily handed Sam off to Alison and then went into what she called the "dragon's lair" at the end of the hallway to rouse their moody teens.

Grace threw a pillow at her door and groaned. Lily rolled over and growled at her mother to go away. Emily threatened to take away their phones, like she did every morning, and that got them moving.

Emily went to get dressed and then went to see how breakfast duty was going with Sam. She walked in to find Alison angrily opening and closing cabinets.

Sam was watching from his high chair, messy drool dripping down his chin. His hands and face were covered with a variety of different colors of baby food. It looked like Alison had started with his regular cereal, but most of that was all over the floor.

Lily slinked by Emily and quietly whispered,

"Get out while you still can." Then she disappeared into the living room with her grumpy twin sister.

Alison grabbed Sam's favorite spoon, hoping that seeing it would entice him to take a bite of carrots. They'd already tried fruit, peanut butter, oatmeal, and applesauce, and they'd ended up wearing most of it.

Alison slammed a jar of baby food on the counter next to half a dozen different foods that were already open. She twisted the top off with so much force that if it hadn't been sturdy it would have broken in half. She shoved the spoon into the goop roughly.

"Uh, you having a bad morning there, hon, or are you just mad at the kitchen?" Emily walked over to her side. Alison's shirt had baby food splattered all over it.

"I can't get him to eat." Alison grumbled in frustration as she walked over to Sam. "If I can't get him to eat then it will throw off his eating pattern, which will throw off his sleeping pattern, and he'll be cranky and he'll never go down for his nap, which means he'll sleep through dinner and then keep us up all night."

She tried to sneak a spoonful of baby food into his mouth, but he blew a raspberry with his lips and sent particles of food everywhere.

"Why won't you eat?" She looked directly at her son.

Sam kept his gaze locked on his mother's and reached out with his slimy hands. He shoved his bottle off of the high chair.

"Well, now he's just mocking me." Alison said caustically as she leaned over to get his bottle.

"He probably just knows we're nervous." Emily walked over to Alison. "Babies can smell fear."

When Alison stood up to put his bottle back on his tray, Sam reached out towards the spoon that was sticking out of his carrots. He slapped at it and squealed. The spoon flipped into the air, knocking the jar to the floor and sending the spoon flying directly into Alison's forehead.

It took every ounce of self-control Emily had to keep herself from laughing.

"Sammy, that wasn't very nice." Emily reached for a paper towel.

Sam just howled in laughter, because he laughed at everything inappropriate.

Alison snatched the paper towel away from Emily and went to the sink to wet it down. She tried to get the baby food out of her hair. Her eyes were burning with tears.

"Hey, take a breath. He's had fussy mornings before." Emily walked up behind her and wrapped her arms around the frazzled blonde.

"This feels different. I feel like he's punishing me for leaving him."

"You're not _leaving_ him. Besides, you really think he's capable of plotting revenge? He chewed on his foot for half an hour yesterday."

Alison was already starting to feel Emily's essence calming her down.

"What would I do without you, Em?"

"You'd probably be bald from pulling all of your hair out."

"Ugh, that would be a horrible look on me. I'd rather be dead and buried in an ugly pug sweatshirt."

"I think you look beautiful no matter what." She kissed her cheek, right next to her ear. Emily had learned years ago that it was soothing to her. "Mmm, you taste like bananas and oatmeal with a hint of baby slobber. _Sexy_."

Alison had to laugh at Emily's absurdity.

"You're a freak, you know that?" Alison smiled at her.

"I'm _your_ freak." Emily reminded her.

Sam slapped his hands against his high chair table, interrupting the moment. He babbled as he smeared food everywhere. It was like he was working with fingerpaints.

Alison sighed.

"How are you doing, Ali?" Emily asked sincerely.

"This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be." Alison admitted.

"Are you sure you're ready to go back?" She leaned forward until their cheeks were touching. Alison's back was flush with Emily's front.

"I've been ready to go back for weeks. I mean, there are only so many times you can do the hokey pokey before you want to put your head through a wall."

"Yeah, I hear what you're saying." Emily laughed. "If I have to listen to _Baby Shark_ one more time while he chews his foot and laughs hysterically I'm going to throw the TV out the window."

"I could kill the girls for introducing him to that." Alison rolled her eyes.

"Better than introducing him to _Evil Dead_."

"Those little monsters will probably show it to him at some point."

"His innocence is doomed with those two in his life." Emily chuckled.

"We can hear you. We have an open floor plan. _Duh_." Lily called out to them.

Alison and Emily laughed quietly.

They looked at Sam. Sometimes they still marveled at the fact that he was theirs, that he existed. He was so innocent.

Sam saw them looking and he grinned, reaching for his bottle again. He smacked it to the floor and giggled.

Emily felt Alison sigh into their embrace. Emily pulled back, moving so she was in front of her wife. She pushed a sticky strand of baby food covered hair away from her face.

"Listen, I don't know if you're ready for this," Emily said softly. "It just seems like it's really hard for you…"

Alison felt offended by the suggestion that she somehow wasn't strong enough to be a super-mom.

Why wasn't Emily freaking out? It made her feel like a basketcase. It made things worse. She wanted Emily to be as miserable as she was. That's what marriage and parenting were all about. They were supposed to be in it together. And she knew it was childish to feel that way, but misery loved company.

"Why is it so easy for you?" Alison snapped.

"Ativan. Ambien. Xanax." Emily shrugged. "Take your pick."

"I'm serious. How can you be so calm about this?"

"You're kidding, right?" Emily asked. "Ali, I haven't slept in two weeks. I've been making lists. _LISTS_. Like my _mother_. I've been sneaking out of bed to watch him sleep at night…"

"You do that, too?" Alison smiled warmly.

"I do. I do everything you do. I drive myself crazy worrying about the "what ifs" and "worst case scenarios". But then I remember one very glaring detail that we seem to be forgetting…"

"What?"

"We've done this before. And they're right in the next room, very much safe and alive…"

"Oh my God. That feels like a lifetime ago. The golden years…when they couldn't talk yet." She grinned. "Was I this worried about them?"

"You were a total headcase." Emily didn't sugarcoat it.

"Gee, thanks for thinking about my feelings." Alison quipped back sarcastically.

"I was, too." Emily reminded her, wrapping her arms around Alison for another hug. "We were both still so shaken up about everything Mary and Alex put us through. It felt like death and destruction was around every corner."

They still thought a lot about what they'd gone through when they were younger. They had managed to come out stronger in the end. But they still had bad days. Sometimes they still jumped when they heard a phone go off or saw someone in a black hoodie wandering the street. Sometimes they still feared that someone would come after Lily and Grace.

"If we can make it through that, we can make it through anything." Emily kissed her. "Those days are long gone. And Lily and Grace are totally fine."

They heard the girls squabbling over something.

"Give that back!" Lily hit Grace with her History book.

"Ow, what the hell?" Grace retaliated by socking her in the stomach with her bookbag.

"Well, they're _mostly_ fine." Emily took it as a win. "And Sam will be, too."

She walked over to their son, who was doused in all of the colors of the rainbow. Somehow he had managed to get his food all over himself and not his bib. They would definitely have to change him again.

"So, are we still doing this today?" Emily asked, dabbing the orange mess of carrot mush off of his face.

Sam made a face and started to whine. He shoved Emily's hands away, but she easily managed to grip his fingers and wipe them clean with a baby wipe. She gave him a handful of cheerios to keep him from screaming bloody murder about being cleaned up.

"I'm ready," Alison said calmly. "I think I was just freaking out because the idea of leaving him is too much. I just know I'm going to miss…"

She was interrupted by a flying cheerio smacking her in the eye, followed by a devilish giggle.

"You were saying?" Emily couldn't help but laugh. Because it looked like Alison was ready to bail on breakfast duty and never come back.

"Absolutely one hundred percent ready." Alison made a face at her messy son.

He laughed.

"Good. We have nothing to worry about. It's not like we're leaving him with strangers. I mean, it's Aria. The most dangerous thing they'll be doing is discussing the allegories in Ancient Roman Philosophy."

Alison frowned, her brow crinkling in a strange sense of disapproval.

"I don't know that I'd say that we have _nothing_ to worry about. Didn't Malcolm have to get stitches on her watch once?"

"Yeah, and Finn broke his thumb on _our_ watch. Kids bang into stuff. It's what they do." Emily brushed it off. "At the end of the day an adult's job is to just make sure the kid doesn't die. That's all."

"How uplifting." Alison gave her a hard time. "You should write a children's book."

"It's true." Emily shrugged. "Everything we've been through…we've survived. And it won't be any different for our kids. They're resilient. And _we_ made them that way. How many times did we tell the girls not to bother us unless there was blood or they could see bone?" Emily asked.

"God, I still remember when Grace fell and smacked her head on that brick playground when she was three. I swear I thought it hurt me than it hurt her."

"We'll just pretend she was messed up in the head before that." Emily teased.

"We can still _hear_ you!" Grace grumbled, walking into the kitchen.

"Be still, my beating heart. Is that, per chance, a teenager awakened from her slumber in the early dawn of the morn?" Alison joked.

"Your kids are going to eat you alive in class today." Grace was in no mood for her mother's banter. She saw her brother plucking at his cheerios and she smiled at him. "Morning, Sammy. Look at you. Breakfast of champions. Who's the strongest little peanut in the world?" She cooed.

"Why aren't you this nice to your teachers?" Emily questioned.

"You want me to talk to my teachers the way I talk to an infant?"

"Anything besides calling your gym coach a repressed crybaby on 'roids is an upgrade." Emily said.

Lily sauntered into the kitchen, dragging her feet. She grabbed a banana and sat down at the table next to Sam. He immediately turned his attention to the fruit. She broke a piece of the banana off and offered it to him. He smashed it with his fingers, got it coated in cheerios and then started sucking on the mush.

"Heard you're going to Fitz Manner, little dude. You're going to love it. Auntie Aria will sneak you pixie sticks and let you watch cartoons all day." Grace tousled his hair.

Sam reached out to swat at her, getting bananas and cheerios all over her arm. Lily laughed.

"Let's see how you like it." Grace wiped her hand on Lily's shirt.

Sam thought it was hilarious, so he started slinging food all over the place again. The girls were like a tornado of destruction. They always started something, and Sam was quick to join in.

Alison stood by the sink, washing off a dish. Emily leaned against the cabinet and faced her. The blonde seemed lost in thought.

"Still worried we're not ready for this?" Emily questioned, grabbing a towel so she could dry the dish.

"Not at all." Alison glanced over her shoulder. Her kitchen was getting messier by the minute. "I'm just wondering how much it would cost for us to leave Lily and Grace at Aria's, too. Maybe we could just sneak them in the back and then drive away."

Emily snorted out a laugh. They glanced at their kids. It felt like just yesterday that they were dropping the twins off with Emily's mom for the first time. They had both cried in the car. But as the day went on their guilt started to ease and their anxiety faded. And the excitement of not having to listen to the same nursery rhymes 500 times in a row helped return their sanity to normal.

Alison knew it would be the same with their son. She was emotional about leaving him, but she was also enthusiastic to get back to a world away from drool and flying spoons and cheerios. She knew she was going to have plenty of time to watch him grow up.


	15. Christmas

**Prompt: Can we get a prompt of Sam being one of the kids who gets excited when they get a banana for Christmas when they're toddlers? Maybe one of the other liar's kids gives it to him as a joke to film him and he reacts positively? Maybe?**

* * *

 **A/N:** _I've got a couple of holiday themed prompts in my inbox, but this one actually kind of struck a little chord in me because earlier this week I was having a conversation with a friend who has a new baby at home and we were talking about how it's always the little things that matter around the holidays. We both grew up in poor households, so we were happy to get little things. And kids who get excited about the little things have a special place in my heart._

 _Happy Holidays!_

 _Quick guide to "who that baby-daddy" PLL edition, because there's a hella lot of kids running around…it's your own fault for talking me into writing these families._

 _Fitz kids: Finn and Aurora  
Rivers kid: Cami  
Cavanaugh kids: Bailey and Violet  
DiLaurentis-Fields kids (like I have to tell you?): Grace, Lily, Sam  
DiLaurentis (Jason and his wife Danielle) kids: Leo and Maddox_

* * *

 _ **Christmas**_

The DiLaurentis-Fields' house was the most decked out house on the street, inside and out. The flashing lights that made their place look like a scene out of Chevy Chase's _Christmas Vacation_ drew in people driving by. They stopped to look at all the decorations and the timed light show that Emily had set up this year.

Inside, the house smelled of everything Christmas-y. Pine, Cinnamon, Cocoa, peppermint, and the pure joy of children ripping open presents and squealing in delight when they got something they'd been dreaming of all year.

No one got more excited about their gifts than the youngest member of the family, three and a half year old Sam DiLaurentis-Fields. He had a slew of toys that had been given to him by his moms' closest friends, who had joined them for a Christmas dinner at their house.

The toddler had insisted that everyone else open up their presents first, so now that all of the kids had their new gadgets and playthings he was the center of attention. He went through each one of his presents slowly and meticulously, each one more exciting than the last. He was starting to get to an age where he could appreciate the joy of receiving gifts. He was sitting by the Christmas tree, his face illuminated by the lights. He was surrounded by everything he'd been given.

He'd gotten a train set from Finn and Aurora Fitz, Aria and Ezra's kids. Nine-year-old Finn had helped his new little sister pick it out. They had adopted her nearly a year ago. She had just turned five and it was her first big Christmas with her new family. She'd taken an instant shine to Sam, because he was close to her age and she liked his enthusiasm. He also had a very obvious crush on her.

Sam glanced at his new toys. He'd gotten a shark pillow and a set of Legos from Cami Rivers, Caleb and Hanna's thirteen-year-old daughter. Spencer and Toby's younger daughter Violet, who had just turned twelve, had helped her pick out the new Lego set for him. Their older daughter Bailey had gotten him a bubble machine and a bunch of candy.

His cousins, Leo and Maddox, along with their dad Jason, had built him a play set in the back yard. His twin sisters, Lily and Grace, who had just passed their sixteenth birthday milestone had bought him a scooter and a drum set, something their mothers had advised them against…because they knew he'd beat on it at all hours.

When he'd opened the drums the twins had grinned at their moms. Alison had given them an "I'm going to kill you both in your sleep" death glare, but Emily thought it was hilarious. She'd even called Sam "Our Little Drummer Boy".

There was only one present that remained. Cami was the one who leaned down and plucked it out from underneath the tree. She handed it to him and smiled.

"Now, this one is _really_ special, Sam. All of us chipped in to get this just for you."

The rest of the kids giggled. Bailey and Grace both pulled out their cell phones to record him. He stared at the poorly wrapped package, but the presentation of the gift didn't matter to him. He looked up at the other kids with a nervous smile on his little face, like he was afraid he wasn't worthy of the gift, because _wow_ , they had ALL gotten it for him. It had to be really cool.

"Go ahead, munchkin." Lily encouraged him. "Open it."

He carefully peeled away the paper, dropping it as he picked the thin material apart. After a few seconds he had it totally unwrapped.

More snickers from the kids. The adults just watched in curiosity.

"What'chu got there, Sammy?" Emily asked.

"I got a banana!" He exclaimed. He looked up, the torn wrapping paper in his lap. He had an excited look on his face as he looked directly into Grace's camera phone. "It's my favorite!"

"It is?" Grace laughed.

"Yeah!" His voice squeaked. He stood up, holding the banana like it was the most precious thing in the world. "Mommies! Mommies, look it!" He ran over to Alison and Emily.

"We see, buddy." Alison smiled, completely caught off-guard by his reaction.

His mouth was open wide and his eyes were sparkling with delight. There was no faking his pure joy. He really actually loved it. He walked over to Cami and hugged her.

"Thank you," he said softly.

All of the kids' sniggers had turned into genuine "aws" of affection. Sam went around and hugged everyone in the room and thanked them, something he hadn't done for any other of his gifts. After he hugged Aurora he smiled at her.

"'Rora!" He couldn't say her name just right yet. "Look! I got a banana!"

"I like it. It's really cool. Can I see it?" She shyly replied.

"Uh huh." He handed it to her and she turned around and faced her parents who were across the room.

"Can we get one, too?"

"I'll check with Santa." Ezra smiled at his daughter.

"I just bought some." Aria whispered. "Remind me to put two in her stocking tonight."

" _Two_? Whoa there big spender." Spencer pushed Aria with a playful smile.

"Here you go, Sam." Aurora gave him his present back. She leaned against her new brother with a smile and hugged him. "Finn, mom and dad said Santa is gonna bring us a banana, too."

"I heard." Finn nodded, hugging her back.

Sam leaned down next to his dog Buster's bed, where the dog was watching all of the action unfold.

"Look what I got, Buster!"

The dog lifted his head and sniffed the banana, then he laid back down with a yawn. Sam gripped his banana with both hands and turned around to see that he was still being recorded. He looked at Bailey's camera.

"Are you gonna eat it?" Bailey asked.

"No!" Sam exclaimed with a little laugh. "I'mma save it. It's special." He crawled on the couch, mindlessly talking to himself as he often did when he was happy and excited.

It was the funniest thing in the world to everyone watching him, because he'd been eating bananas since he was a baby. He saw them every day. Yet, for some reason, this one was special.

"Jason got him a jungle gym for the boys to play on and a _banana_ is his favorite present?" Alison couldn't believe it. She faced Emily. "I'm starting to wonder if he's really ours. Maybe he was switched at birth."

"What? You wouldn't have been happy with a banana?" Emily knew the answer, but she poked her in the ribs with a teasing grin.

"Are you kidding? I would have screamed until I passed out."

'So, basically, every date night." Emily winked, whispering so only Alison could hear her, though Spencer was standing close enough to catch it.

Spencer snorted out a quiet laugh. Alison glared at her.

As the night wore on, everyone settled down. Toby, Caleb, Ezra, and Jason took the boys to go get ice cream. The girls were going to a movie. Sam was still traipsing through the house with his banana. He hadn't put the thing down since he'd gotten it. They could see where it was starting to bruise.

"He's going to be devastated when he finds out the shelf life of a banana." Alison grimaced.

"We'll just keep replacing it like we did the girls' goldfish." Emily shrugged.

"You _what_?" Grace's jaw dropped. "Not Laurence Goldfishburne!"

"Oh, come on Grace…how did you _not_ notice?" Lily laughed. "He shrank two sizes overnight once."

"I just thought he was on a diet." She faced her mothers with a frown. "How much fish blood do you have on your hands? How many poor little goldfishes were flushed to keep up your lies?"

"I lost count after the twelfth one," Alison said, almost uncaring. "Ridiculous having to pay for fish that lasted all of two weeks…" she muttered.

"So when he finally died for good… _seven_ years later…we were burying a perfect stranger?" Grace asked.

"Tamp it down, kid. You are so dramatic." Alison snorted.

"Wonder where she gets that from." Hanna peered at Alison over her wine glass.

"Didn't your daughter get called into the office for back-talking a teacher right before the holiday?" Alison frowned, but her manner was that of someone who was joking.

"Only because the teacher can't handle the same sass she gave _our_ teachers all those years ago." Hanna eyed Alison with a smirk.

"She started a fire in class, Hanna," Alison replied dryly.

"Allegedly!" Cami exclaimed from the kitchen.

The adults laughed.

"I wouldn't have sent you to the office had you not made that remark about me living through the _stone ages_ while we were reading _1984_!"

Emily had to laugh. A fire was fine. But a shot at her age was where she drew the line?

"It was a protest! I was just expressing my thoughts about the book!"

"And she's _still_ sassing me." Alison shook her head.

"That's my girl." Hanna smiled.

"I can't believe you lied to us about Laurence Goldfishburne." Grace was still stuck on her long-dead fish. "My heart can't process this. On _Christmas_ , no-less," Grace said with a fake whimper. "I'm going to need at least two…" She thought about it. "…maybe three hundred dollars cash and a new iPhone to process this grief."

"Mmhmm. You're getting the car for the night and enough money to get you snacks at the movies with your friends." Emily smiled. "Don't push it."

"Well, it doesn't bring him back. But it's a start."

Sam accidentally dropped the banana and then gasped and leaned down.

"I sorry, fwiend." He picked the banana back up. "Are you okay?"

"That's going to leave a mark." Alison bit her lip.

"At least we won't have to have a funeral for the fruit." Emily pointed out.

"You two are terrible mothers." Grace rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah." Alison messed with Grace's hair. She handed Lily the car keys. "Be home before curfew. And you girls drive safe and behave."

"Yes, ma'am." They replied at the same time.

"Sammy, bath time." Emily walked towards the toddler.

Normally he fought bath time. He'd started rebelling against it when he was two. But tonight was different, because he knew that tomorrow was Christmas. He basically bolted up the stairs while stripping out of his clothes.

Emily gave him his bath. Alison brought in his favorite "Grinch" pajamas and they dried him off and helped him get dressed.

He jetted towards his room, Emily and Alison following. When they walked in they looked at his bed. There, settled among his plethora of stuffed animals neatly aligned at the head of his bed was his beloved banana.

He pushed all but one stuffed animal and his banana off the bed and then climbed under the covers. They squeezed in next to him in his big-boy racecar bed and read him "The Night Before Christmas".

"…and they heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, Merry Christmas to all…"

"And to all a good night!" Sam interrupted Alison.

Emily and Alison both laughed at his enthusiasm. Alison kissed his forehead. Then he turned towards Emily and she did the same.

"Love you, mommies," he said, his voice sluggish and tired.

"Sleep well, Sammy." Emily snuggled him. He gave her a big hug.

Alison and Emily both quietly slipped out of the bed. He was almost off in dreamland. He had a stuffed puppy under his arm and his banana snuggled up next to his face.

"You really like your banana, buddy?" Emily asked, pulling the covers up over his body, tucking him in. She was unable to resist giving him another goodnight kiss.

"I love my banana." He nodded, trying to fight his sleep.

"Why?" Alison asked.

"Cuz…" He yawned. "I have to make sure my minions have a happy Christmas, too."

"Your…minions?" Alison asked in surprise.

"Minions love bananas and I wanna be the best evil boss in the whole wide world, just like Gru. I want my minions to have a family just like you and Mama and Grace and Lily."

Aww, if that wasn't the sweetest…yet, most evil thing, he'd ever said…

"And then me and my minions and 'Rora and her minions are gonna take over the _whole_ planet."

"Love you, little minion." Alison laughed and gave him another smooch.

"Mommy, you're silly. _I'm_ not the minion. I'm their boss."

"Of course. Of course you are, sweetie." Alison stroked his head.

He yawned again. And minutes later he was asleep. The excitement had worn him out. They quietly tip-toed out of his room. They pulled his door until it was nearly closed and then walked down the hallway, sharing smiling glances at one another.

"Minions?" Emily snorted as they walked into their room.

"I was wrong. He's _definitely_ ours." Alison laughed. "Should we tell Aria her daughter is planning on world domination with our son?"

"No wonder Aurora wanted bananas, too." Emily snickered.

"It's funny. I always thought if _any_ of our kids were going to turn out to be evil masterminds it would be Spencer's girls."

"Or Grace." Emily thought about it.

"That child has been a little deviant since birth. I bet that's where Sam got it from."

"So…next year we're getting him a nuclear fusion reactor with lasers and a freeze ray, right?"

"Oh, definitely." Alison nodded. "Our son is not taking over the world unless he's doing it in style."

Even though their son had revealed himself as a super-villain, on Christmas Eve no-less, just the fact that he had his minions in mind and wanted them to have a Happy Christmas warmed their hearts. It made them want to go out and buy every banana on the shelf at their local grocery store. After all, what good was a super-villain and his minions without loving and supportive parents?


	16. Home

**Prompt: Can u please write a short fluffy happy prompt of Emily returning from the army and meeting Alison and her kids in the airport?**

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 **A/N:** _Two people asked for a prompt for their holiday gifts. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Maybe next year Santa/the Hanukkah Beagle shouldn't use USPS, cuz those presents are ALWAYS late..._

* * *

 _ **Home**_

Grace had insisted on blue. Lily wanted pink. They'd settled on purple. They had managed to get most of the marker on the poster board. Their little fingers ended up covered in glitter and glue. The first 'e' in "Welcome" was backwards and the 'o' in "home" had gotten smudged. But when they looked at Alison and asked,

 _"How does it look, mommy?"_

Alison said, "Perfect."

Because it was. They had made it with love. They were so excited that their mama was coming home.

 **o ~ O ~ o**

The flight had been nerve-wracking. It's not like Emily hadn't flown before. She was used to it. It wasn't the actual plane ride itself. She was having trouble shaking off the residual anxiety she had from being in combat. She was also anxious to hold her babies and kiss her wife again. She spent the entire flight thinking about them. She couldn't wait to see them again.

When the plane was approaching Rosewood Emily opened the window shade and looked at her town below. When the aircraft started its descent Emily could see the clouds, as soft as white mountain peaks covered in snow. The wings sliced through them as though they were nothing. She could see the bulbous shadows hovering above the ground.

She felt something brush against her arm on the armrest. When she looked over her shoulder she saw the little girl next to her sitting up high in her seat, trying to look out the window. She had been playing games on the screen in the seat in front of her the entire trip, but now that the window was open she was trying to get a better look at what was happening outside.

"Can I see?" she batted her big blue eyes at Emily. She had her little palms against Emily's arm.

Her mother looked over and saw the little girl practically climbing over on to Emily.

"Amelia, honey, what did we talk about earlier? It's not polite to touch people without asking first." She faced Emily. "I'm sorry. She doesn't understand boundaries yet."

"It's okay. I get it. I've got two girls around her age." Emily smiled.

"Must be hard to be away from them."

There was an unspoken understanding between the two mothers.

"Yeah. They grow up so fast." Emily looked at Amelia, who was oblivious to the adults talking around her.

"Amy, you remember how we talked about how some mommies and daddies have to spend time away from their babies to be somewhere else to protect us?"

"Uh huh."

"What do we say, do you remember?"

The little girl looked at Emily's uniform and it registered. She smiled at Emily and leaned up on her knees.

"Thank you for your service."

Emily had to bite back tears. It was such a sweet and simple gesture. And it was something that she'd obviously learned from caring parents. It made her realize how much of her daughters' lives she was missing. She had been gone for nine months. What had she missed in that time?

"You're very welcome."

"I like your pins." Amelia pointed to Emily's medals.

There was one medal she hadn't gotten in person yet. It was one that Alison didn't know about. It was the reason she was coming home.

Her purple heart.

She'd been injured by a roadside bomb. Fortunately, no one had been killed, though they had been ambushed after the attack. She'd suffered three broken ribs, mild burns on her side, two fractures in her arm, and a laceration on her right hand. She'd managed to pull three of her squad members to safety even with her injuries.

She was healing up nicely. She'd mentioned the ambush to Alison, but she had downplayed her injuries and told her that she was okay, which was the truth.

She didn't realize that her commanding officer was going to give her the option to be medically discharged due to the nature of the problems her injuries might cause in the future. She didn't know that nearly being blown up was going to bring her closer to her family.

The little girl was squirming in her seat, trying harder and harder to look out the window.

"She's welcome to sit on my lap if you're okay with it." Emily offered.

"It's fine with me."

Emily helped the little girl into her lap and they looked out the window. They watched as the buildings and streets turned from tiny blips into shapes and images they could actually recognize. She held her, pointing to the landmarks below, until the "fasten seatbelt" sign came on. Then she helped her get settled back into her seat.

Landing was always the hardest part. She knew from experience that take-offs and landings were generally the most dangerous parts of the flight. But when she looked outside at her town, her home, she couldn't feel anything but excitement.

 **o ~ O ~ o**

The airport was lined with people, a sea of faces all moving in waves to their next destination. Some were rushing. Some were sitting and sleeping in chairs. Others were waiting in the crowd for their loves ones.

Alison held the twins' hands firmly as they moved through the crowds. One of her biggest fears was losing one or both of them in a busy place.

"I don't see mama." Grace whined, twisting the poster board with her fingers.

"She's still coming home, right?" Lily looked at Alison, a sad look of fear in her eyes.

Sometimes the girls worried that they'd never see their mama again. They didn't know the extent of what Emily did, but Alison and Emily had had the conversation with the girls about how sometimes mama would be in situations where she had to help others, but that she would always do her best to come back safe and sound.

Alison looked up at the plasma screens that showed the arrival and departure times. Emily's plane was at its gate. She would be coming towards them any minute. She felt a bubbling sensation in her stomach she hadn't had since she was in high school. She hadn't seen Emily in nine months. It felt like forever. She couldn't wait to hold her again.

"She should be here soon." Alison assured the girls.

"I wanna hold the sign." Lily reached for the folded up poster board.

"No! I want to!"

They were both cranky. They'd fought in the car on the way over. Alison told them to behave and that they could both hold it. They each stood on one side and held the sign up, but it kept flopping forward, so Alison ended up holding the damn thing while the twins pretended they were the ones holding it up.

A crowd of passengers rounded the corner and started walking towards them. They dispersed, finding their family members. Alison watched everyone hugging and it made her antsy. She wanted to be in Emily's arms. She wanted to kiss her wife...to touch her cheek...to bathe in her aroma.

It was the twins who spotted her first. The uniform was a dead giveaway. Grace squealed and Lily shouted "mama!"

Emily turned and saw them and she felt her heart melting. She saw the large childlike letters on the poster board covered in sparkles and glitter. They had drawn hearts around their simple message.

 _"Welcome Home Mama. We Love You."_

The twins were supposed to stand behind the roped off security line, but they forgot everything they'd been told to do when they saw Emily's face. They dropped the poster and raced forward before Alison could grab them.

No one in security stopped them. In fact, one of the men in uniform walked over to where Alison was standing and unlatched the rope to let her through so she could be with her family.

Emily dropped her bag and fell to her knees as the twins ran into her arms, both of them crying 'mama!' so loudly that everyone in the airport turned to see the commotion. She didn't even feel the tightness of her still healing injuries. All she felt was her children's love.

Grace and Lily wrapped their arms around her neck. She reached up and gripped the backs of their heads with her palms and peppered them with kisses.

"Hi, babies."

Emily was not someone who cried easily. She'd been through a lot in her life and some of it had hardened her. She had a tight lid on her emotions. But she was a sucker for her kids. And the second she had them in her arms she crumbled, burying her face in between their necks, letting her tears fall down her face.

"Oh, I missed you _so_ much."

"We missed you, mama." Lily pulled back. "Why are you crying? Are you sad?"

"No." Emily reached up to wipe away her tears. "No, I'm crying because I'm so happy to see you."

They had gotten so big. She felt like she hadn't seen them in years. Being overseas away from her family was hard. She didn't know how much she was missing until she had them in her arms. It was like a piece of her she didn't even know was gone had been returned to her.

She saw Alison approaching. She gripped Lily and Grace and picked them both up, putting one on each hip just like she'd done since they were babies. She instinctively moved forward towards Alison and their lips met. Alison put her palm against Emily's face and thumbed away a stray tear.

"Hey." Emily pecked her lips again.

Alison tasted as sweet as she remembered. She couldn't believe she was here. She couldn't believe she was with her family again. She had a new appreciation for what her mother and father must have felt like every time they reunited.

Alison wrapped her arms around her wife and children. Her body melded into Emily's, as if they were a perfect fit, even with their children... _especially_ with their children. They stayed in their embrace for several minutes.

They could hear the applause and the cheers of the other passengers in the airport, but they still felt like they were in their own little world.

Grace started wiggling and wanted down. She was suddenly on a tangent about how she wanted to show Emily their poster, which was sitting on top of a counter over by the security area.

Emily put Lily and Grace down, which gave their mothers a moment of intimacy without them. Emily reached up and cupped Alison's cheeks. The blonde's eyes were brimming with tears. She couldn't contain her emotions any longer.

"I missed you so much," Alison sobbed with a smile on her face. She was so happy to see her...alive...home in one piece.

Emily wiped away Alison's tears with her fingers and pressed her lips against Alison's once more. Their noses touched. Their foreheads met. They took a moment just to hold one another.

"Mama." Lily tugged on Emily's hand.

Emily forced herself to pry her eyes away from Alison's and look down at her little girls.

"Can we go home now?" Lily asked.

Emily leaned down again, giving the twins another opportunity to hug her neck. She picked them up, balancing them on her hips. She snuggled Lily and then Grace. They both giggled.

"I want to hear all about what you two have been doing while I've been away."

She carried them as far as the food court. The second they saw ice cream they were begging for sugar. Alison and Emily bought them each a cone and they walked out of the airport together. They'd both inhaled their treats by the time they got to the car. Their moms got them situated in their booster seats. Emily threw her bags in the back and then climbed up front with Alison.

She took a moment to appreciate where she was. It was something so simple...sitting in the car with her wife and her children. But it was something she knew a lot of people took for granted. She didn't want to miss a single second.

"So." Alison put her hand down against the center console. "How long are you staying?"

Emily hadn't told her the good news. She'd wanted to see the look on Alison's face when she told her she was coming home for good.

Emily reached down and took Alison's hand, linking their fingers together. She smiled.

"How about forever?"


End file.
